


Only the Beginning

by cloudsNcoffee



Series: Why Don't We [4]
Category: Why Don't We (Band)
Genre: Boyband, Dancing and Singing, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Misunderstandings, Modeling, Multi, Singing, Slow Burn, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-03-28 10:36:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13902261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudsNcoffee/pseuds/cloudsNcoffee
Summary: What's that saying?Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern.This has become my worst habit, and I don't know if I want to kick it.Or: Daniel gets the girl, falls in love, and chases his dreams.Not necessarily in that order.





	1. Atlanta

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer:  
> While this was written with the public persona of the band, their team, and their friends in mind, the following work is fiction.  
> I don't know them, own them, or claim to have any insight into their real lives.
> 
>  
> 
> Unbeta-ed, please be kind.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Caution: This story acknowledges the existence of sex, between consenting adults. It's not explicit.

  
**Daniel.**

  
**The first time it happens, we pretend that it didn’t.**

 **When I wake up with Angelina's perfume in my sheets and hair on my pillow, I act like I never saw it.**  
**When she wakes up to my half-dressed freak out, she acts like she can’t read me like a book.**

 **There was a minute, or maybe a second, where one of us could have said, ‘About last night…’, but neither of us did. What might have been our moment, our opportunity, to talk about it, we completely ignored.**  
**Instead, we got smoothies.**  
**Instead, we found wetsuits and went surfing, threw each other into the water, and laughed until our smiles weren’t awkwardly forced.**  
**Instead, we silently vowed to never discuss it.**

 **Ignoring it was fine. It was all fine; until it happened again.**  
**And again.**  
**And again.**

**Now we’ve done this so many times, we have rules; not that we’ve discussed those either.**

**I shove at her shoulder as I climb out of bed, “Lobby call in fifteen minutes.”**  
**She makes a noise so I know she heard me, and I’ve learned means to leave her alone because;**  
**1\. No affection in the morning. Whatever happened in the dark, it doesn’t exist in the daylight.**  
**I send Jonah a text begging for coffee while I wait for the shower to heat up, telling him I overslept my alarm because;**  
**2\. Don’t tell anyone.**  
**I’ve been laughing off the idea that she and I could be anything for longer than I’ve been in a band, and even though we live in each others' pockets, I still haven’t told the other guys about this. I stumble out of the shower and force myself into clothes, last night’s slacks and a shirt that passes the sniff test, while shoving everything else into my suitcase. I dummy-check the room, glancing under the bed and in the closet making sure I got everything, before shoving at her again and calling lightheartedly when I’m halfway out the door, “See you around?” because;**  
**3\. Never plan it.**  
**I never know when I leave her when I’ll see her next, or if I’ll see her like this again.**  
**“Not if I see you first,” Angelina answers, sunnily now that I’m leaving. I image her taking a bath then charging outrageous amounts of room service to my card, something I only know because I get the statement, not because I’ve ever seen it.**

**My brother meets me in the lobby, handing me an unopened carton of orange juice and throwing his arm over my shoulder, “Missed you in the gym this morning,” He steers me towards the bus, “After an early night too. You doing alright?”**

**Tyler being our road manager is great for me most of the time. The other guys have to spend weeks, or months, away from their families, and I get to drag a piece of mine around with me wherever we go.**  
**It would be great all the time, if my brother wasn’t such a nosey busybody.**

 **“Yeah,” I try to shrug him off, unsuccessfully, since he got a growth spurt at twenty that I still haven’t hit. He’s got two inches and forty pound on me, “I just needed some extra sleep.”**  
**“Hey, man,” Zach catches up with us, “Where’s my breakfast?”**  
**“On the bus,” Jonah pushes a coffee cup into my free hand, then takes Zach’s shoulders to steer him that direction.**  
**“But he’s got orange juice!” Zach whines.**  
**“On the bus,” Jonah shoves him out the door.**  
**“Eli’s meeting us in Atlanta?” Tyler asks as we follow them in a more sedate place.**  
**Jonah shrugs, looking back at us from halfway up the stairs into the bus, “Maybe,” but his smile gives it away. It only takes saying our choreographer’s name to light up his whole face, he’s so into her.**  
**“You suck,” Corbyn calls out from already inside the bus, “Christina’s too busy to fly out until we get home.”**  
**“Quit complaining,” Jack grumbles, “Brooke can’t visit until after the semester is over.”**  
**Tyler lets go of me so I can navigate the steps with my hands full. Inside, Jack’s taking up half a sofa, his head resting on the back edge with his eyes closed, and Corbyn next to him yawning into his coffee without blinking. I think there was a point where none of us liked coffee except Jonah. It might have been a lifetime ago.**  
**“I don’t make the schedule,” Jonah reminds Jack, while he tosses his overnight bag into his bunk.**  
**I move away from Tyler as everyone turns to glare at him. “Hey now…” He starts.**  
**“You’re a masochist,” Zach slumps down into the booth of the bus’s dinning table.**  
**“Sadist,” Corbyn mumbles.**  
**“What?”**  
**“He’s the sadist, because he likes inflicting pain,” Corbyn corrects, “We’re, obviously, the masochists, since we pay him for this.”**  
**“Shoulda stayed in school, bro,” I take the bench across from him while he squawks about that comment. The rest of the band got our high school diplomas, or the equivalent, but Zach was fifteen when we got started, and quit caring about finishing his after we got signed.**  
**He quiets down when I pass him my orange juice, and Jonah drops into the bench next to him offering a handful of granola bars. Zach’s always been easy to bribe.**  
**The bus takes off once Tyler checks everyone is here, and we make it to Atlanta without anyone else questioning my whereabouts last night.**

 **They do, however, insist on talking about girlfriends.**  
**“Hey, Daniel,” Corbyn has migrated to laying with his feet over the back of the sofa, and his head off the seat. He grins at me upside-down, and I already know I don’t like where this is going.**  
**“Hey, Corbyn.”**  
**“So, you know how you’re still single, and Christina thinks that’s sad?”**  
**“I’m aware,” I bite my cheek. That’s roughly seventy percent true. I am mostly single, and his girlfriend does think my lack of a girlfriend is sad. I’ve told Christina a dozen times I’m too busy for that, but no isn’t an answer she seems willing to take for a problem she’s determined to solve. I don’t know when my relationship status even became her problem, but I suspect sometime around when she ambushed me and forced me to let her pluck my eyebrows.**  
**“Well, she’s got this friend…”**  
**I knew it. I groan, “Corbyn.” I don’t want another setup, and her friends are always a handful anyway. He knows this too.**  
**“Christina says Lily is cute, and fun, and not weird, so you should really take her up on this, next time we’re in the city.”**  
**I shake my head. I’d rather let Christina go at my eyebrows again.**  
**“Come on, dude,” Jack pats my back, “What could it hurt?”**  
**The fragile balance of whatever is going on with my best friend doesn’t seem like the appropriate answer. “I don’t want to meet someone in a blind date.”**  
**“Why not?” Zach tosses his phone up in the air. He’s already broken two this year, but none of us tell him to knock it off.**  
**“I just don’t want to, Z.”**  
**“Christina’s right though,” Zach catches his phone just before it hits the floor, “You haven’t had a girlfriend, like, ever.”**  
**“I had girlfriends before I moved to Los Angeles.”**  
**“That doesn’t count,” Corbyn declares, “Tyler’s had six since we moved houses.”**  
**“Tyler is a serial dater,” I point out, and Corbyn hums in agreement, “And Zach’s single too.”**  
**“Zach is still jailbait.” Zach helpfully adds.**  
**I kick him from across the table for talking about himself in third person, and for being generally annoying about this, “You’re seventeen, and you go on plenty of dates.”**  
**Zach shrugs, smirking, “So, what you’re saying is, good on me for trying.”**  
**“Trying to swap spit with half the population of California.” Jack huffs, and I have to give him a hand for that one.**  
**Zach kicks at both of us, which we probably deserve. It’s not like he’s trying to have fifty first flings, and no serious relationships, but that’s how it seems to work out for him.**  
**“Sorry, Zach,” I ruffle his hair.**  
**“Back to the issue at hand,” Corbyn interrupts, “Yay or meh on this girl?”**  
**He holds his phone up for me, presumably to show me a picture of her, but I don’t even look, “No, Corb. Tell Christina I appreciate her offering up her friends, but, no, thank you. I’m fine.”**  
**He shakes his head in fake disappointment, and Jack mimics him, “Daniel, Daniel, Daniel. What are we going to do with you?”**  
**“Lose to me in Mario Kart?”**  
**Jack smiles, “You mean stomp you into the ground? Sure.”**  
**We shove past each other racing to the back lounge of the bus, where Jonah and Tyler undoubtably heard that whole conversation, but it seems like the topic is dropped for now. From past experience, I know I should have another three months before this comes up again.**

  
**Angelina’s ring tone in my phone is the chorus of The White Stripes’s ‘We’re Going To Be Friends’. Hers is the only personalized one I have anyway, since I’m on the phone with her more than anyone else. She hates FaceTime, and thinks texting is impersonal, so we end up talking the old fashioned way most of the time.**  
**“Hello?” I pick up after the first few bars, slipping out onto the balcony of the hotel room I’m sharing with Corbyn tonight. We don’t always share, but on the nights we randomly ended up staying places we do.**  
**I hear her sneeze instead of a greeting.**  
**“God bless you?” I shut the door behind me.**  
**She sneezes again, “There were kittens at the shoot today.”**  
**“You’re allergic to cats.”**  
**“I know,” She sounds pathetically sad about that, “But they’re so cute.”**  
**“But you’re allergic,” I repeat.**  
**“But…” Angelina starts before she sneezes again. She doesn’t have a delicate sneeze either, and it’s even louder over the phone.**  
**"Bless you," I try, then fail not to laugh. She loves all babies, puppies, kittens, humans, it doesn’t matter. If she didn’t travel so much, her apartment would be a petting zoo.**  
**“Don’t be mean,” She teases, “It’s not my fault.”**  
**“They sicked kittens on you?”**  
**“They would’ve fit in my pocket,” She answers like that justifies anything.**  
**I sit down in one of the cold metal chairs, “Nothing fits in your pockets, Ange.” She taught me that. Girls pockets are purely decorative, you can’t even properly fit a phone in them.**  
**She sighs, “You know what I mean.”**  
**“Yeah, I do,” The chair creaks under me as I try to get comfortable, “How long are you in Miami for?”**  
**“Just another twenty-four hours,” Her voice sounds wistful, “I haven’t even been to the beach yet, but the model apartment is so far away.” The places her management puts her up are always confusing to me, but she says it keeps their talent in one place, and it’s only for sleeping anyway. It still must be strange to stay in the same house with her competition, but she hasn’t ever said so.**  
**I consciously don't bring up the fact that the hotel we woke up in had a private walk to the shore, “There are no good waves there anyway.”**  
**“Okay, surf snob,” I can hear her grin, “I didn’t say I wanted to go surfing. Maybe I just want to tan.”**  
**I smile, “Like you could go to the beach and not get in the water.”**  
**“Why do I even like you?” Something thuds in the background, probably her shoes. She’s always calls me when she’s finished with work for the day, so I end up listening to her get comfortable a lot.**  
**“No idea,” I tell her honestly.**  
**She laughs.**  
**I blow out a breath on my hands, “I can’t believe it’s still cold here. Why is it always cold when I’m here?”**  
**“You’re in Atlanta, right?” Something rustles on her end.**  
**“Yes, we’ve got a interview at five,” I rub my palms against my thighs, but that doesn’t generate enough heat either. “In the morning,” I add incase she couldn’t tell from my tone. No one likes waking up before seven, so five is early enough Jack joked we might as well not go to sleep.**  
**“That’s rough. Are you singing, or is it only radio talk?”**  
**“We’re singing. I think we’re going to try steaming in Zach’s shower before we go.”**  
**“You always sound fine,” Angelina’s been making this argument for as long as we’ve been doing early morning radio, but it still isn’t true. Our vocals are shoddy that early, and nothing really fixes it.**  
**“We’re better warmed up.”**  
**“You’re great all the time.”**  
**“You’re required to say that.”**  
**There’s the sound of metallic clicks of a zipper pull, “Why’s that?”**  
**“You’re my friend. You have to be supportive.”**  
**“Eh,” I think she’s put me on speakerphone now, “I’d tell you if you sucked.”**  
**“That’s reassuring.”**  
**“Good. It should be. I’ve got the best opinions.”**  
**I don’t even start on that. The girl eats ketchup on her eggs, which is proof enough that some of her opinions are dead wrong.**  
**Corbyn knocks on the glass before sticking his head out, “Hey, D?”**  
**“Give me a second,” I take the phone down from my ear, “What’s up?”**  
**“Pizza’s here, you’re gonna wanna get it while it’s hot.”**  
**I nod. That’s code for Zach’s regretting whatever he ordered and eyeing my dinner, “Okay, I’ll be there in a minute.” Corbyn taps his fist against the glass again, then slams the door shut.**  
**“You better go,” Angelina says, her voice clearer now, “You need sustenance.”**  
**“I guess,” I want to tell her I miss her, but that’s crossing the invisible line, “Call me tomorrow?”**  
**“Sure. I’ve got to be on set early, I’ll try to catch you guys.”**  
**“That early, huh?”**  
**“It’s brutal, but at least no one expects me to sing.”**  
**She’s an okay singer, but the way she sasses that makes me laugh, “Let me know what you think if you do listen.”**  
**“I will. Goodnight, Daniel. Love you," She says the same way she has since we were kids.**  
**“‘Night, Angi. Love you too.”**  
**In the morning as we're leaving the radio station, she sends me a text a picture of her sitting in makeup, her hair straightened on one side but her natural curls on the other, and the words, ‘I’m a disaster, but You sound perfect.’**

  
**It’s comforting, in a way, having Eli with us. She’s been with us on every tour since our first, but she rarely comes on radio jaunts. She doesn’t have the time, and we aren’t even dancing.**  
**When she’s with us though, the bus stays cleaner, everyone eats better, and Jonah smiles more. So despite the fact that Eli’s just breezing through this trip, along for the ride for a few days then taking off somewhere else for work, having her around now makes us relax.**  
**After lunch Eli perches on the armrest of the sofa next to Jack, laughing at some story he’s told, before catching my eyes, “Did you get a chance to see Angelina in Miami?”**  
**Eli is one of the only people she lets call her that, and she always calls Eli, Elijah in return.**  
**“Angi was in Miami?” Tyler perks up in his seat at the table.**  
**I shrug, telling them a half-truth, “She was busy until late.”**  
**“That’s too bad,” Eli starts messing with Jack’s hair, “The pictures she sent me are beautiful.”**  
**I’m not sure when they got to be picture sharing buddies, but it’s not all together surprising. The first time they met, Eli cornered me when Angelina left to tell me that she was glad I had great taste and smiled at me after like she hadn’t implied something dangerous, then never brought it up again.**  
**“We haven’t seen her in a while…” Corbyn glances at me from his spot slumped down sideways half out of his chair.**  
**“Angi?” I make a face at him.**  
**“Yeah,” He tries to nod, his chin hitting his chest, “You never bring her around anymore.”**  
**I shrug again, “She’s been busy.”**  
**Corbyn makes a face, “Still. I like her. You should get her to come to more stuff.”**  
**“Careful,” I force myself to smirk, “I’ll tell Christina,” I tease, instead of telling him that there’s a reason I don’t. I’d always rather have Angelina alone, instead of bring her around the band lately.**  
**“Please,” Corbyn just laughs, “She thinks Angi’s the bomb too.”**  
**I don’t have a rebuttal for that. It’s the truth, in the same way Angelina and Eli became fast friends, she and Christina just clicked. She loves Jack’s girlfriend, Brooke, too.**  
**“Leave Daniel alone,” Eli taps his knee with her foot, “And sit up properly, you’re going to pull a muscle, or break something, laying like that.”**  
**“You’re sitting on a ledge!” He points out, but rights himself to sit like a normal person.**  
**“And when your balance is half as good as hers, we’ll trust your stability while the bus is moving,” Jonah pats his back, winking at Eli.**  
**She dimples at him, while Corbyn moans, “Why do you always gotta take her side?”**  
**Jack huffs, throwing an arm up around her, drawling, “Uh, have you meet Eli?”**  
**“That’s enough,” Eli pats Jack’s curls to soften the diss, then leaps up, “I’m going to get some work done before we stop,” She heads to the back of the bus, looking back over her shoulder, “Jo?”**  
**He’s up and after her in an instant.**  
**I could hate Jonah for this. It would be easy to hate him for having something so sorted and solid and real but their relationship grounds him, in the way he does for all of us occasionally, and he still looks gobsmacked half the time when he watches Eli. Hating that would make me heartless.**  
**It does make me want though; not Eli, obviously, but what they have.**

**It’s becoming an issue, but one I’m determined to ignore.**

**Ignorance is bliss, probably.**


	2. Miami

Angelina.

Ignorance is not bliss.

It’s a foundation of secrets and house of deceit, that I, apparently, took up residence in completely innocently months ago.

“Sam,” I spit his name out, “Why didn’t you just tell me?”  
“I thought you knew!” He looks towards the ceiling. If he tugs on his hair any harder, he’s going to pull it out.

The problem is; I like Sam. He’s my friend, or I thought he was, and we work together. We’ve been on shoots together in at least four countries now. He’s funny, and nice, and easy to talk to.

“How could I have possibly known that?” I glare at him.  
“We’ve been on dates,” He stresses, glaring back, “Alone. With wine.”  
“We were in Italy,” I gesture with my hands, “I wanted pasta and no one else was eating carbs!”

Looking back on it now, maybe I should have expected this.

“Angi,” He sighs, “If you aren’t interested, you can just say so.”  
“That’s not…” I try to find the words, “I am…”  
Sam stops me, “Look. You keep telling everyone you’re single, and I like you,” He rubs at his thigh, “Even when you pinch me for trying to kiss you.”  
“Sorry,” I apologize for the sixth time, “I wasn’t prepared.”  
“I’m just glad you didn’t punch me,” He smiles at me like my self-defense is cute, “We could go out, see how it goes…”  
It’s tempting. Sam is good-looking and while he knows it, he is a model, he isn’t cruel about it. He’s genuinely nice, and I do like him as a person. I’ve just never thought of him as more than a friend.  
“No pressure. We’ll both be in Cali next week, we could do something then,” He puts his arm around my shoulder, “Or not. It’s whatever. We’ll be cool either way.”  
I must nod, because he smirks, “Alright. Now, let’s go find the ice cream.”  
I roll my eyes, and force myself not to think about what he’s asked for the rest of the night.

 

It’s harder in the light of day. Or the dark of day, since the sun is hardly up.  
“I saw you with Sam last night,” Thomas cuts a look my direction in the mirror. He’s sitting next to me in makeup, and the woman doing his hair keeps him from turning to look at me.  
“Ooooh,” Becca purrs on my other side, “He’s cute.” She does spin in her chair, since they haven’t started with her yet.  
“We were just talking,” I meet Thomas’s eyes, and the makeup artist between us huffs a laugh, “That’s all.”  
“It didn’t look like ‘just talking’,” He air-quotes.  
Becca giggles, “No one ‘just talks’ with Sam. Or at least no one wants to.”  
“So true,” Thomas sighs.  
“He’s okay.”  
“Sure. He’s okay,” He snickers, “Okay for a specimen of human perfection.”  
“He’s nice,” I try again.  
“Nicer to look at,” Becca messes with the extensions in my hair.  
I groan.

This is what I’m worried about. One date isn’t the end of the world, but dating in the most gossip hungry industry seems miserable. I’ve always been happy not to do it.

“What were you talking about then, if you were just talking?” Thomas closes his eyes for them to hairspray him. A hurricane wouldn’t stand a chance against his quiff at this point.  
“He asked me out,” I confess, because he’d get it out of Sam later anyway, “I guess he’s been stealth dating me for weeks, and I hadn’t caught on.”  
Thomas grins like a cat with a canary, “That’s the opposite of just talking.”  
“So you’re going out with him?” Becca is bouncing in her seat, “When? Tonight? Where are you going? Do you know what you’re going to wear? Do you think he wants to make it, like, official?”  
“Wait,” Thomas makes the stop motion with his hand, thankfully stemming the flow of her questions, “First, how do you stealth date someone?”  
I’d bury my head in my hands, if it weren’t for the person behind me with a flatiron and the makeup artist messing with my blush.  
“Miscommunication,” I blink, “I just thought we were doing friend things, and he thought that was dating.”  
Thomas nods, “Huh.”  
“Well, he’s not the brightest crayon in the box,” Becca concedes, “But you said yes, right?”  
“I didn’t say no.”  
“You better say yes,” Thomas decides, “If it can’t be me, it should be you.”  
“Hey!” Becca snaps.  
“Or you,” He winks, “Point is, nobody turns that down.”  
“I might,” I grumble.  
“You shouldn’t,” He narrows his eyes, “You haven’t been on a date in as long as I’ve known you,” He talks over me when I try to protest, “And you should, you’re too young and hot to be an old maid.”  
“I date. Sort of,” I finish at his skeptical look.  
“When was the last time you had a boyfriend?” Becca messes with the lipsticks laid out on the counter, rolling up a shockingly red one.  
“I don’t know,” I shrug, forgetting about the flatiron until it makes me wince jerking my hair, “High school, probably. I’m too busy for that.”  
“Excuses,” Thomas declares, “Dating is good for the soul.”  
“Says the boy who had three boyfriends at once,” Becca gives me a conspiratorial smile.  
“That was an accident!” He yelps.  
“You broke all their hearts,” I shake my head sadly, trying not to smile.  
The makeup artist in front of Thomas laughs again, “You guys are my favorite.”  
“Aw,” Thomas puts his hand over his heart, “Thanks, babe. Does that mean you’ll take it easy with those tweezers?”  
“Not a chance.”

 

 

There’s only one person in my phone that always shares their location, and I had to change his name to Lucky Charms last year when I realized what a security risk always being available for me was on his part.  
In retaliation he changed my contact in his phone to read Special K.  
“Hi Ange,” Daniel answers, and I can tell how tired he is from just those two words.  
“Hey Danny,” I tuck my phone between my ear and shoulder, “How’s South Carolina?”  
“Oh,” He yawns, “Is that where we are?”  
“Yes,” I laugh, “I suppose you’re on the bus now, then. Anything exciting happen today?”  
“We’re on the bus,” He confirms, “We’ve been on the bus all day. Nothing fun ever happens on the bus. There’s not a whole lot to get into.”  
“I’ve met your band. You guys could find trouble in a padded cell.”  
He yawns again, “Still. I think everybody is way too tired to make trouble today anyway. Has jet-lag always been this miserable?”  
“You’ll adjust. You’re just spoiled from two straight months on the west coast.”  
“Because being pulled out of bed to record at all hours of the night is such a luxury.”  
“Compared to jet-lag?” I can’t remember the last time I was in the same time zone for more than a week. I’m dodging people in an airport as we speak.  
“Yeah, I guess compared to jet-lag, it was okay,” Daniel agrees, “But to answer your question, no, nothing exciting has happened to me today.”  
“That isn’t true. Something exciting is always happening for you.”  
He laughs a little, “Well, it’s nothing of interest to you.”  
“And how would you know?”  
“It just wouldn’t be.”  
“Well,” I swerve to avoid being run over by the golf cart speeding up the airport terminal, “I find you interesting. If you’re excited, I could be.”  
“Thanks, Angelina,” I can read the blush in his voice. He’s never been good at compliments, “But, seriously, today’s only been traveling and album nonsense.”  
I doubt it’s nonsense, but I let it go. Daniel’s played me every song they’ve ever released, every melody he’s ever created, and every lyric he’s ever written, but he’s being oddly secretive about this new album. “Ah…”  
“So,” He changes the subject, “What are you up to?”  
“Flying.”  
“Right now?”  
I laugh, “No, not right now. I’m in the airport, going home for a few days.”  
“Home home?” There’s a familiar longing in his voice.  
We graduated High School two years ago, and since then, neither of us has made it back for more than the occasional weekend. Daniel started leaving Washington even earlier, spending whole months of our senior year in the studio with the guys.  
“Unfortunately, no,” I explain, “I’ve got a job in Pasadena.”  
“That’s still nice,” He tries.  
“The real heat will be great. I’m going to hike, and wear shorts, and surf until I can’t stand on my board.”  
“Are you trying to make me jealous?” Daniel pokes fun at my gushing, gently.  
“Yes,” I tell him without hesitation, “I wish you were going to be there.”  
“Me too,” He sounds almost asleep.  
“I miss you,” I whisper as I slip into a chair at my gate.  
“I miss you too,” Daniel says around another yawn.  
“You sound like you need a nap. Should I let you go?”  
“No,” He insists, “Tell me about your weekend.”  
So I do. I tell him about the shoot, about my clothes, and hair, and makeup. I tell him about pushing Thomas into the pool, and Becca losing her phone in the ocean. I tell him about getting sand everywhere and someone suggesting that I cut my hair.  
Daniel hums and laughs at all the right pauses, so I keep talking until my flight is boarding and his breathing has gotten slow, then I hang up while he snores as my plane takes off.  
It’s not the worst way to spend a afternoon.

  

  
I hear the knock when I’m mostly ready, my dress is still unzipped, but my makeup is perfect. I peak through the hole in the door, then throw the lock to open it, “Daniel.”  
He rocks on his heels, already smiling, “Angelina.”  
I have to smile back, his is so infections, “What are you doing here?”  
“Looking for you?” He winks, and I have to laugh.

Daniel does this occasionally, randomly show up wherever I am, and to be fair, I do the same to him.

I remember where we are only after we grin stupidly at each other in the hall for a minute, which is dangerous for him. He’s too famous to go unaccosted when he stands around in public, and I haven't got time for that tonight.  
“You’re ridiculous,” I drag him back inside my hotel room by his jacket.  
He follows me inside, whistling as he looks around, “Fancy, Angi.”  
“Well, they made me fly coach…” I grumble.  
Daniel just laughs. His band might have sold millions of records, but they still travel in a single tour bus. They would probably still fly coach if there wasn’t a chance they’d get torn apart by fans.  
The whole thing is nuts to me. I’ve known Daniel was an incredible musician for as long as I’ve known him. He was born to perform, and his voice makes my knees weak too, but it’s insane to watch the rest of the world clamor for a piece of him now.  
He’s still, mostly, just the same sweet goofball I met in fifth grade.

“Zip me up?” I spin around for him.  
He sets one hand on my waist, and uses the other to pull the zipper up. His warm fingers brushing against my neck when he’s done, “Going somewhere?”  
I set away from him to buckle my shoes, “Yes, I’m sorry…”  
“Where?” He sits on the edge of my bed.  
I can’t make myself meet his eyes.

Daniel and I are, in a word, complicated. He’s been my best friend since forever, but we dabble in more than friends occasionally. His company is my favorite, and it’s nearly enough to make me call this whole thing off.

Instead I tell him, “I have a date.”  
I can feel him tense up. “What?”  
“You know Sam?” I force nonchalant into my tone.  
“Model guy Sam? Big blonde dude?” Daniel’s voice is weirdly strangled.  
“That’s him,” I check my teeth in the mirror for lipstick, “You liked him,” I remind Daniel.  
He makes some noise I take as agreement. “He asked me out during my last night in Miami. We’ve been seeing more of each other at those Adidas shoots. He’s taking me to some ramen place, and I told him I’d meet him at his room, like ten minutes ago,” I dust the front of my dress, checking the time, “Make that fifteen minutes ago,” I pick up my keys, and turn towards Daniel, “What do you think?”  
He nods kind of blankly, but says sincerely, “You always look beautiful.”  
I blow out a breath, moving towards the door. I don’t know if Daniel’s made me more or less nervous, “I’m really sorry I can’t stay. Are you going to be around tomorrow?”  
He shakes his head following me into the hall.  
“Well, you’ll call me?” I pat his shoulder, “And text me first next time.”  
“You hate texting,” He rolls his eyes, “Have a nice time?”  
“I’ll try,” I’d follow that with a laugh, if his face didn’t seem all wrong. He gets on the elevator before I can call him on it, and Sam yells my name out from down the hall.  
When I look back, Daniel’s already gone.

 

 

  
“You aren’t into this are you?” Sam pulls back, “Like, not even a little.”  
“I’m sorry,” I mutter, looking at my lap instead of him. We’re sitting on a dock after our second date in two days, and it just isn’t going well.  
“Don’t be sorry,” He takes his hand off my waist, and the other out of my hair.  
“It’s not you?” I try, with a tiny shrug.  
“Clearly,” He knocks his shoulder against mine, “What’s going on in that cute head of yours?”  
I sigh. I’ve kept myself from thinking about this, for as long as it’s been a thing to think about, and I really don’t want to talk about it, but I probably owe Sam. “Daniel showed up last night, when I was getting ready to meet you,” I explain.  
“Your best friend?” Sam checks.  
“That’s him,” I nod, “He wasn’t even supposed to be on this side of the country.”  
“What was he doing here then?” Sam tilts his head to one side, and it makes me think of a golden retriever. That imagine suits him, loyally all-American blonde. I think he sort of kisses like one too, not that I’ll ever admit to that.  
“I don’t know…” I look away from him, “I was running late for you, and now he won’t answer my calls.”  
“Huh.”  
“So.”  
We sit in silence for a few minutes, but it’s not weird, somehow.  
“I don’t mean to be blunt,” Sam starts, “But I gotta know…”  
“Sure” I try to grin, “Ask away.”  
“Well…” He laughs good natured as ever, which is reassuring, until he follows it with, “The question is, are you in love with him?”

Am I in love with Daniel has always been the question.

The problem is, in every movie, there’s a moment.  
There’s a scene where everything clicks. It all comes together with a bang, and there is no denying what’s happening.  
For me, there’s never been a moment.  
I’ve been a little bit in love with Daniel, for as long as I can remember.  
There’s been no great cosmic shift, no ridiculous dancing in the rain, nor any sticky note vows for us. There’s just me and him, and so many feelings to untangle that I’ve never tried.

“A little bit, maybe, I don’t know,” I bite at my lip, “He’s my best friend.”  
“I know.”  
“He’s a singer, and pretty popular. It's a lot. He's always traveling and recording...”  
“I know that too.”  
I look at Sam.  
He smirks, “You only talk about him constantly. If I hadn’t heard you say you were single a million times, I would have always thought you were dating him.”  
“We’re not…” I try to explain, “It’s not really like that.”  
“But it kinda is,” Sam stands up, wiping his palms against his jeans, “You should just talk to him.”  
“But you see, the thing is,” I stand up too,” I could also just not do that.”  
"That's true," He laughs again, “That is an option. You could also never talk to him, but I think you should, and I think you should talk about this.”  
“Why?” I whine.  
“Because,” He jostles into me, “There was more longing in your voice for him not picking up the phone for you than you’ve ever had for me, and guys just don’t show up in places they aren’t supposed to be for people they aren’t in love with. Trust me.”

It hurts to admit it, but he might have a point.  

 


	3. Pasadena

**Daniel.**

**There’s no point.**  
**I’ve been repeating that to myself for years now.**  
**There’s no point in being attached to Angelina.**  
**She’s not mine, not in any way that would allow me to demand she skip a date to stay with me, or potentially never go out with anyone else.**

**So I ran away. I made it back to the band house before they realized I left, and it was easy enough to play off my disappearance when it was only Zach asking where I’d gone.**

**It’s impossible to avoid their prying when I ignore her calls the next night.**

**“What’d she do this time?” Jack asks when I send her to voicemail for the third time.**  
**“What?” I flip the volume on my phone to silent.**  
**He gestures towards me, “That’s Angi’s ringtone. You always pick up, unless she's annoyed you somehow.”**  
**“Not always…”**  
**Zach snorts, “Sure you do.”**  
**“I don’t always answer the phone,” I spin in the office chair I’ve claimed for my seat, “And we’re in the studio, we’re not supposed to talk in here.” Corbyn is the one recording currently, but we’re still supposed to be respectful.**  
**Jack rolls his eyes, “Like that’s ever stopped you before. Seriously, what’s your issue?”**  
**“What’s your issue?” I challenge back, my tone meaner than I anticipated. It’s stupid, but I can’t stop myself. I don’t want to get into this.**  
**“Seriously, bro…” Jack shakes his head, “I’m just looking out for you.”**  
**“Don’t,” I study the wall.**  
**“I thought exercise was supposed to give you endorphins,” Zach whispers.**  
**“Zach…” Jonah says in warning.**  
**“What? He was a drag last night too,” Zach groans, “He went surfing this morning, so he shouldn’t still be all moody.”**  
**“You’ve seen Legally Blonde too many times, Z,” Jack shakes his head.**  
**“The case still stands; excercise gives you endorphins, and endorphins are meant to make you happy,” Zach argues.**  
**“Okay, that’s enough,” I push up on the table to stand, sending my chair rolling away from me, “I’m going for a walk.” No one stops me since I don’t have anything else to record, and am clearly bad company today, so they don’t have a reason to try.**  
**The sun is blinding here, but I ignore that, along with the heat and humidity.**

**I just walk for a while, my thoughts a spiral I can’t seem to get out of, until I recognize where I’ve ended up.**

**I memorized the code, a string of completely meaningless numbers to me that always make Jonah smirk, so I let myself in the gate.**  
**There’s a chance Eli might not be here, she spends a lot of time in New York, but I know Jonah slept here last night and because he practically lives here when she’s around, I’m betting she’s in town.**  
**I knock twice before she answers the door with headphones pulled down around her neck.**

**Eli and I aren’t close. Not the way she is with Zach and Jack, where she treats them like brothers, or the way she is with Corbyn, all camaraderie and respect sparked from her longstanding friendship with his girlfriend, Christina.**

**Eli and I, though, we’re too much alike.**  
**We understand each other, but we’re so much in our own heads, both too quiet and deliberate for easy conversation. She’s never been my confidant, not the way she is for the other guys, but if she’s surprised I’m here alone she doesn’t show it.**  
**Eli just gives me a once-over, then leads me into the kitchen to start tea without asking.**

 **I like Eli’s place. Jonah’s explained that this house is technically her dad’s, but they’ve done a ton of work to it. It’s their pictures on the wall, Jonah’s car in the garage, and her sparkling kitchen. They’ve made it their place, but I didn’t fully realize that until all his clothes had disappeared from our rental six months ago, since we all spend a lot of time over here anyway. No one in the band wears shoes inside, we’re constantly rearranging the furniture for movie nights, and at some point we learned to raid the fridge without asking.**  
**I think like this place because it feels like a home, in a way the band house, simply, doesn’t.**

 **After the tea is done, Eli fixes mine by drowning it in milk and honey, then directs me towards her living room.**  
**When I sink into the sofa, she folds herself in the chair opposite me. We sip our drinks and Eli speaks quietly around me, telling me about her work, her plans for our next tour, and the weather, before I finally interrupt her, “Why didn’t it work out with Colton?”**

 **She doesn’t seem surprised by my outburst either.**  
**“I love Colton very, very, much,” She sighs, setting her tea down on the table beside her. I knew that already, that’s the reason I’m here.**  
**Before she started dating Jonah, Eli was with Colton for like half a decade.**

 **Now, I can’t fathom Jonah without Eli, or vice versa, but I have never been able to figure out why she broke up with Colton. He was her best friend from childhood and neither of them stopped loving each other. Those pieces have never clicked but have always made me wary, because if they couldn’t stay together, maybe being more than friends can’t ever work out.**  
**“But?” I lean forward in my seat, resting my elbows on my knees.**  
**She gives me a little shrug, “I’ve been tremendously lucky, Daniel, to love as many people as I do, and to have them love me in return.”**  
**Eli is constantly surrounded by people who care about her; she’s an introvert but never alone.**  
**It’s another thing we have in common.**  
**Eli meets my eyes, “But it’s entirely possible to love someone, and that not be enough. Between us, it wasn’t enough. I just loved Colt too much to break up with him, until I loved him enough to end it,” She doesn’t look away, instead lets me read the clarity in her eyes as she tells me, “I could never see a future with Colton. It didn’t exist. I couldn’t even imagine it. But Jonah?” Eli smiles around his name, “Jonah looks the rest of my life.”**

**That, actually, makes sense.**

**“You aren’t here about my relationships, though.”**  
**I choke, then cough to cover it up.**  
**She isn’t fooled, “You been… with Angelina,” She scrunches her nose, picking up her cup to spin it around it her hands, “For a year?”**  
**I swallow, “How do you know that?” I’ve been careful. I haven’t told anyone, even giving Eli this indication that she’s right is difficult, “Did Angi…?”**  
**“No,” Eli answers quick, “No, but… Her perfume tends to stick.”**  
**I know immediately what she means. Eli has a sensitive stomach, and even more sensitive nose. Jonah claims that’s why she’s the best cook, but she threw up on the bus last month when Zach tried a particularly offensive aftershave.**

 **Angelina always smells like the sea, salt and coconut; it’s the best.**  
**I just didn’t know it clung to me after I left her enough for Eli to notice.**

 **I can feel my face heat up, “So you knew?”**  
**“It wasn’t complicated,” She says apologetically.**  
**“And the guys?” I slump down into the sofa.**  
**“I think they wonder,” She sips at her tea, “I know Jonah does.”**  
**“But you didn’t tell him?”**  
**“That’s not his business. If you don’t want to tell him, he doesn’t need to know.”**  
**I relax, slightly. I should have known better than to think she would have said anything. Privacy is important to her, she wouldn’t give away my secrets.**  
**“It’s not my business either,” She taps her fingers against her mug, the two gold bracelets on her wrist clinging together.**  
**I’d have to disagree. I brought this to her doorstep, but Eli keeps talking, “But, if you’re asking about Colt because you think it might be relevant to your relationship with Angelina, you don’t need to.”**  
**“I don’t?” I raise a brow.**  
**“No,” She shakes her head, “Colt and I fell into our relationship, and it was easy to fall out. I don’t see you stumbling into anything. I’d advise you towards more deliberate action, just don’t be shy with her. You never have been, and you shouldn’t start now,” Eli smiles at me, “Be honest about what you want, and believe her when she tells you what she does, but I can’t fathom a place those things wouldn’t line up.”**  
**I consider that, chewing on my lip, but the garage door opens before I can question her logic, effectively ending our conversation.**

 **“Gorgeous?” Jonah’s voice rings out, at the same time Zach calls, “E?”**  
**“In the living room,” She answers, lighting up at the sound of his voice, “I found something of yours.”**  
**“What did I forget this time…” Jonah pauses in the hallway to look at us. Zach charges in front of him to sprawl down on the sofa beside me. He reminds me of a puppy, affectionate even after I’ve been a jerk.**  
**Eli is a few years older than I am, but when she dimples at him, she looks much closer to Zach’s age, “It’s a lasagna night.”**  
**I scowl, but no one notices. Eli bakes lasagna, a food so far off the meal plan she attempts to keep us on that it’s on a different planet, only when someone is being especially pitiful.**  
**Tonight, I get the feeling that someone is me.**  
**“Oh,” Jonah thumbs at his chin, watching at her, “Is it?”**  
**Zach cheers, because her lasagna is also his favorite food, “I’ll call the rest of the guys. Can you make that salad?”**  
**“Be more specific, Zachary,” Eli instructs.**  
**“You know the salad with the stuff?”**  
**“With the kale?” Jonah suggests.**  
**“No, with the bread things…?” Zach tries.**  
**“Croutons?” Eli offers.**  
**“Croutons!” He claps his hands together, “Please, please, please?”**  
**Eli ruffles his hair, “If you help me.”**  
**Zach gets up again so quickly he trips on the rug. Eli pats my shoulder as they walk past, and I catch Jonah lifting the cup from her hand as she shimmies by him.**  
**Jonah watches the pair of them vanish into the kitchen, leaving us alone in the living room, before turning to look at me, “You’re good?”**  
**“Yeah,” I answer, because I’m overwhelmed, and not remotely up to discussing it with him, “I’m good.”**  
**“Alright,” Jonah nods once, claiming Eli’s now vacant chair and drinking her tea, “Mortal Kombat or Baseball?”**

**I’m in bed when I call Angelina, because I don’t answer all her calls, but I do always call her back.**  
**“Hello?”**  
**“Angelina.”**  
**“Daniel,” Her voice is faint, like she might have been asleep.**  
**“I’m sorry,” I lower my own voice, “I know it’s late.”**  
**“It’s…” I hear her bed springs squeak under her, “It’s really not that late. Are you still in California?”**  
**“We’re booked in the studio until Thursday.”**  
**She’s uncharacteristically silent for a moment.**

 **“Do you think you’ll ever get tired of it?” She asks on an exhale.**  
**“The studio?” I confirm because I know she does this occasionally, completely ignores the obvious topic of conversation. I don’t know if it’s mercy on me or her tonight.**  
**“Yes,” Angelina mumbles, “You still say that like it’s Disney World.”**  
**“I know. I really miss it when we’re touring, but then I miss touring when we’re recording.”**  
**“And you’re never not doing one of those.”**  
**“Nope.”**  
**“Do you think you can keep that up?”**  
**She’s genuinely curious, and I have to think about my answer, “Forever?”**  
**She hums an affirmative.**  
**“I don’t know. I hope so?” I move my pillows around, “I doubt we’ll get that long, but I’d be happy, if we did. I’ve got the best job in the world, Ange.”**  
**“Don’t I know it?”**  
**I can picture her smirk, “What about you? Do you think you’ll get tired of modeling?”**  
**“Maybe, but I’ve got a smaller window than you do, and this wasn’t really my dream.”**

 **I think there was a future in which Angelina and I went to the University of Washington, and because she has always been better in school than me, she would have bested me in all our college classes too.**  
**I wouldn’t trade this life for anything, but for a long time that possibility seemed way more reasonable. Until it happened, imagining myself making music for a living and her modeling seemed like expecting too much. I’m thankful every day for it though.**

 **“What do you think you’ll do then?” I can’t stop myself from asking, “When you stop modeling?”**  
**“I think…” She pauses, “I think, maybe, I’d like to be on the other side of the camera.”**  
**It’s not what I would have guessed, but it suits her. She takes photos everywhere she goes, “Photography, huh?”**  
**“Or… Maybe, directing?” Angelina sounds unsure.**  
**I could see her doing that too, “You’d be a great director.”**  
**“You think so?”**  
**“Yeah, I do,” I bite down on my smile, “You’ve always been bossy.”**  
**“Hey!” She protests.**  
**“I mean it in a good way.”**  
**“Sure you do.”**  
**“Leadership is a valuable skill.”**  
**Angelina laughs, “Thanks, D.”**  
**“You’re welcome,” I laugh with her, before going serious again, “I think you could do that though, be a director. You would be good at it.”**  
**“Yeah?”**  
**“You’ve always had vision.” She’s always been able to see things differently, then force the world to match. It makes her an expert problem solver.**  
**She thinks about it for a second, “It’s just something I’m throwing around. For the future.”**  
**“You’ve got time,” I agree, “I don’t see this career slowing down for you anytime soon.”**  
**“But when it does…”**  
**“You can do whatever you want,” I tell her, “Whenever you want to. If you decide that’s directing, you can already count me as a client.”**  
**“For what?” She teases, “Are you going to hire me to make music videos for your top secret songs? You know the ones you still won’t play for me?”**  
**“Sure, and they’ll be brilliant,” I’m not even kidding. I’m positive she could pull that off.**  
**“You’re kind of ridiculous, you know that?” She’s back to mumbling into her pillow.**  
**“For believing in you?”**  
**“For doing it blindly,” She confirms.**  
**“For you, Angelina?" I mutter, “I couldn’t not.”**  
**I’m mostly relieved when she takes that as a joke I don’t mean it to be.**

**Jack wakes me up in the morning by tossing my skateboard into bed with me. It doesn’t hit anything vital, but my shin is going to bruise.**  
**“What the? Jack?” Everything comes out of my mouth in a higher octave from the pain.**  
**“Daylight’s wasting. Let’s go, Daniel.”**  
**I squint at him, but I know I was awful company yesterday, and he still wants me around, so I drag myself and the board out of bed.**  
**There’s a park by our house with more than enough space and few enough people around to ride in, so I take off that way. Jack follows me without talking about it. We mess around for an hour. Jack mostly grinding on the curb while I try to keep my head down, because there’s a no skateboarding sign here and we’ve been told off for this before.**

 **When Jack bails off his board after hitting a crack in the pavement, I offer him a hand up, “I’m sorry.”**  
**He laughs, “It’s my fault. I should’ve seen that.”**  
**“I meant for yesterday.”**  
**“You know I’m on your side, right?” Jack picks his board up, “Like, I’ve got your back, y’know?”**  
**“Yeah, bro,” I study him, “I know.”**  
**“So, we’re cool. It’s fine, if you don’t want to talk about… Whatever,” He gestures vaguely around us, “But, I’m not going to judge you or anything,” His mouth turns up in a wry grin, “Even when you’re grumpy.”**  
**I nod, blowing out a breath. I know that too. I’d never doubt his, or any of the guys’, support in anything I wanted.**

 **“So… Are we going to talk about it, or are we going to skate?” Jack spins his board.**  
**“I, ah…” I kick my mine up and sit down on the grass, “I went to see Angi, and when I got there she was leaving…”**  
**“Sucks.”**  
**“Because she had a date,” I grimace.**  
**“Oh,” Jack thunks down next to me, “And that’s…”**  
**I cut him off, “What’s made me sulk for days? Yes.”**  
**He nods a couple times, “Why?”**  
**I groan, “Jack.”**  
**“Man, you’ve told me you’re just friends a hundred times,” He placates, “I don’t want to step on a landmine here, because we all know you’re real sensitive about her, but, like, if you’re really just friends, you don’t get to be sad about her having a life,” The look he gives me is too knowing, and sort of makes me want to bail on this whole talk.**  
**“We’re not, strictly, just friends,” I tell the ground next to us.**  
**“What’s that?”**  
**“We’re not just friends,” I grit out past my teeth.**  
**Jack’s first response is, “Corbyn owes me fifty bucks,” followed by, “So why is she going out with other people?”**  
**I decide to ignore the potential reasons why Corbyn would owe him money, because nothing good could come from going down that rabbit hole, to answer his question instead, “We’re not dating.”**  
**“But you’re not just friends?”**  
**I shake my head.**  
**“That’s stupid.”**  
**“Thanks, Jack.”**  
**“I mean,” He flops down flat in the grass, “Why not?”**  
**“It’s complicated,” I flick at the wheels of my board, making them spin.**  
**“I don’t get it,” Jack holds a hand over his eyes to block out the sun while he looks at me, “You think she’s the best thing on the planet and she likes you, so maybe we should get her head checked? But, like, how could that be complicated?”**  
**“We’ve known each other for a long time. Our families are best friends.”**  
**“So you won’t have to do any awkward meet the parents. That seems less complicated.”**  
**“It's not, because if we broke up, it would be a nightmare.”**  
**Besides our family connection, the possibility of losing my best friend has always been enough of a deterrent to keep me from pushing for anything else. Eli wasn’t exactly reassuring on that front either. The only future for me has Angelina in it, so I’d settle for being her best man forever. The alternative, losing her, would wreck me even if I got what I wanted for now.**  
**“So don’t break up,” Jack says, like it’s that easy. For him, I guess it was. He got it right with Brooke, meeting through her best friend’s luck then practicing the kind of PDA that I am incapable of to talk her into being his girlfriend, and that was it. They’ve been together for over a year now.**  
**I fidget with the laces on my shoes, “I can’t control that.”**  
**“Why not?” Jack pushes again, “I know things are all kinds of crazy currently,” He could say that again, “But Angi’s always been a priority for you. Just keep doing that.”**  
**“I don’t know…”**  
**He jumps to his feet, “Well, I do,” He holds out a hand, “Come on, we were supposed to be at the studio twenty minutes ago.”**  
**I check the time and Jack’s right. I’m in the booth first today too, “Tyler is going to kill us.”**  
**“Not if we bring donuts?” Jack offers hopefully as we race out of the park.**  
**I have to laugh, “Guess that's worth a shot.”**


	4. Malibu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Personal note (06/17/2018):  
> Things are bit crazy at the moment, in a very happy, very stressful way.  
> I have a big life event happening at the beginning of August, and hope to have this completely posted before then.  
> My process is to completely re-type each chapter then edit, which is super time consuming.  
> So that’s probably wildly optimistic.  
> Either way, I’m posting two new chapters and finishing this one today to makeup for my mini-abandonment.

Angelina.

  
“It is not worth a shot!” Thomas practically screeches, staring everyone down, “If I drop her, she’ll break her neck.” He’s been ranting a version of that statement for the better part of ten minutes.  
“It’s not that far…” I peer over the edge to get a better look at the water below. We’ve hiked out to a lake in the mountains for a magazine shoot today.  
“I am not holding you over the side of a cliff, Angelina,” Thomas pinches the bridge of his nose, “Jesus Christ.”  
I smack his stomach, “I’m just saying, if you drop me, I’ll only get wet.”  
“You’ll drown!” He glares at me.  
“I’m an excellent swimmer,” I grin back.  
This doesn’t seem to impress him.  
“We can have someone wait down there,” Antonio, the photographer, offers.  
It was his idea to have Thomas dangle me from the edge to begin with. The angle of the rocks make it possible, but barely. Antonio seems to think it will be romantic.  
I’m pretty sure it’s just a quick way to ruin this outfit, but I’m down for it.  
Thomas, however, is absolutely horrified. He rounds on the crew, “This is absurd. Why aren’t you people stopping him? What have you been smoking?”  
“Come on, Thom,” Someone in crowd behind the lights calls out, “Get it over with, so we can go home.”  
“Yeah, Thom,” I climb down to sit on the ledge, “We could always jump in together, if you’d rather.”  
“Your fearlessness is going to give me a heart attack someday, and then you’ll feel horrible,” He grumbles, looking not quite reassured but less trapped, and clearly giving in.  
“Fantastic!” Antonio claps, calling for more lighting and someone to touch up Thomas’s bronzer.

  
“You are going to get soaked,” Thomas shakes his head at me while the crew scrambles to set up the shot, “There’s no chance I don’t drop you.”  
“Probably,” I agree, making my eyes go wide, getting up from the ledge, “But then we can leave.”  
This makes him crack, laughing, “It’s still ridiculous. Why are you so anxious to leave anyway?”  
I lift my arms to let a woman from wardrobe safety pin my skirt, “I have plans.”  
“Oh, really?” Thomas coos, “Sam again?”  
“Nope,” I turn away from him for someone to check my hair, “That’s over.”  
“Sorry.”  
“Not really.”  
“Hmm.”  
“What?” I turn back to him when I’m free again.  
“Nothing,” He looks way too innocent.  
“Your face says otherwise.”  
He laughs again, “I’m just wondering when you’re planning to confess your love for me.”  
I roll my eyes, “What are you talking about?”  
Even if he was my type, which he isn’t, I’m certainly not his.  
“Well, if you’re turning Sam down,” Thomas says his name the way normal people say ‘Ryan Gosling’, “Then there must to be someone else.”  
“Except there isn’t.”  
“You’re sure about that?” Thomas winks, looking somewhere over my shoulder, beaming.  
“Yes,” I groan, bouncing on the balls of my feet, trying to see whatever’s made him so happy.  
Then Daniel steps out in front of a light reflector, wearing black skinny jeans and holding a dozen sunflowers, and I beam too.  
“Daniel,” I leap for him, and he gifts me his perfect gap-toothed smile.  
He whispers my name into my hair when I hug him hard enough to knock the wind from his chest.  
“We were supposed to meet at your house,” I tell his sternum.  
“I remember.”  
“I’m at work,” I remind him, my arms still around him.  
“I can see that.”  
“This is pretty far from Los Angeles.”  
“I’m aware. I did have to drive here,” He laughs.  
I pull back, “Thomas is going to drop me in the lake.”  
“Thomas is going to do what now?” Daniel snaps to attention, looking at Thomas.  
He holds his palms up, “It wasn’t my idea.”  
“Trouble,” Daniel sighs, looking down at me. He’s not that much taller than I am, but he’s got a lot of practice doing that.  
“It’s not as far as Snoqualmie,” I don’t bother explaining it wasn’t my idea either.  
“People break their legs in Snoqualmie,” Daniel reminds me.  
“But we haven’t?” I take the flowers from his hand. We’ve jumped into the river every summer since we turned sixteen and could drive ourselves out there, and neither of us has broken anything.  
He looks over the cliff, “How deep is it?”  
I shrug, “It looks deep enough.”  
“She doesn’t have to go in,” Antonio calls out from behind us, “If Thomas doesn’t drop her.”  
Daniel sighs again, shaking his head a little, “So you’re going in?”  
“One hundred percent,” Thomas declares.  
“I take you like those?” Daniel ignores him, looking at the flowers I’ve clutched to my chest.  
“Sunflowers are my favorite.”  
“I know,” Daniel nods once, then strips his shirt off over his head, “if you’re swimming, I’m swimming.”  
Thomas chokes, but I just smile.  
This is how I find myself over a cliff, sunflowers in one hand and Daniel hovering out of frame, while Thomas strains to hold my other hand to keep me from plummeting into the lake. Antonio calls out various directions and encouragements, until Thomas can’t hold me anymore.  
“I’m slipping,” I call out, as his sweaty grip starts to slide.  
Thomas grimaces, “I’m not…”  
Daniel’s big hand wraps around my wrist immediately, “Got you.”  
Thomas moves out of the way, muttering about pulling something and stupid directors.  
I kick my legs, feeling weightless and secure in Daniel’s grasp, “Now let me go.”  
“You’re sure?” He looks at the water instead of me.  
“If you’re still coming in?”  
He tugs me up a little closer to him, “If you’re a fish, I’m a fish.”  
“It’s bird,” I laugh, because between me and his sister, he’s seen that movie enough times to know better, “If you’re a bird, I’m a bird.”  
He smirks, then drops me.

  
Daniel hits the water seconds after I do, crashing down next to me. He opens his eyes and I make a face to get him to smile. He humors me, grinning wildly underwater, while he wraps an arm around my waist.  
We kick up together to break the surface, gasping inches apart with our eyes still locked. Daniel’s smile loses the wild edge then, becoming something softer and more real.  
In that instant, above the sounds of the water, over the sounds from set, and louder than any of Thomas’s dramatics, for me there’s only Daniel.  
Oh, my thoughts echo.  
Oh.

 

 

“So, that’s a terrible idea.”  
“What?” I look at Daniel over my shoulder while I ring the water out of my hair, climbing the trail back up to set.  
He plucks at his soaking wet jeans, “Cliff-diving in denim.”  
I shake my head at him, “You didn’t have to come in.”  
“Sure I did,” He pokes my back, “We’re fish.”  
I laugh at him, “I’ll see if you can borrow something from set.”  
He shrugs, “I’m driving Tyler’s car, so it’s not the end of the world if I can’t.”  
“You’re so mean to your brother,” I can be petty with my sister, but nowhere near the level Daniel and his brothers take it. He’s far kinder to his own sister, but the boys in his family constantly antagonize each other on purpose, “Tyler loves that car.”  
“So?” He shrugs, reaching out to poke at my waist again, “Keep moving, I left my wallet with Thomas.”  
“What exactly do you think he’s going to do? Run off with your credit card?” I let go of my hair, “Actually…” I grin and take off running, leaving Daniel to sprint after me yelling threats up to Thomas.  
Daniel stands around, being his usual charming self until everyone on set is enamored, and I have to physically drag him away after I’ve been cleared of makeup and ruined high fashion clothes. I love my job, but nothing feels better than my own clothes after a shoot like that.  
When we’re finally in Tyler’s car, I find something in the passenger seat that makes me irrationally happy.  
“You brought my jacket!” I honestly squeal.  
“It’s not your jacket,” Daniel corrects, but doesn’t try to take it out of my arms.  
This is an disagreement we’ve been playing out since junior year of high school, when he showed up in the world’s most perfect, butter soft and expertly worn in, denim jacket and has since spent the last four years refusing to give it to me.  
“You can borrow it,” He concedes, watching me pull it on and hug it around my torso. It’s eighty degrees outside, but I can never refuse the jacket.  
I grin at him enjoying my victory while he puts the car in drive, then roll the windows down, and put my feet up on the dash.

 

“Where are we going?”  
It has taken me an embarrassingly long time to realize Daniel’s driving us the opposite direction of Los Angeles. He’s put an album I love on the radio, belting out the lyrics with me at increasing volumes, the sun is still up, and the wind is sending my hair is flying all over the car.  
This might win out as my happy place, even over the beach.  
He chuckles, “I was wondering when you’d notice.”  
“Navigation is difficult,” I protest.  
“Not really,” He teases.  
“Navigation is difficult for me,” I reluctantly admit, because he already knows.  
Daniel nods, “Which is why I’m driving.”  
“But where are you taking us?”  
Outside of the window, the coast flies by. I can tell from the color of the pavement, the road we’re on is winding nearer to the shore. It’s other-worldly beautiful.  
“Are you hungry?” He looks at me, almost shyly from under his lashes.  
It’s unbearably cute.  
“Yes,” I answer, “Starving.”  
“Good,” He taps his fingers against the steering wheel, “I’ve been told there’s a decent restaurant down here, so I thought we’d go to dinner.”  
I glance at him skeptically, “And who did you hear that from?” His bandmates are fun, but I don’t trust their opinions on what’s edible. They survived for months on Domino’s pizza when they were getting started, and most of them, including Daniel, still think dry cereal is an acceptable breakfast.  
“Eli,” Daniel reaches for me, squeezing an inch above my knee to make me squeal and kick. I’m extremely ticklish there, and this jerk has the exact spot memorized.  
“Stop that!” I smack his hand away, “It’s not fair. I can’t get you back, or you’ll drive us off a cliff.”  
He smiles, “That’s what you get for doubting my taste.”  
“I wasn’t doubting yours,” I protest, “Just your associates.”  
“Calling the guys my associates makes us sound like lawyers or bank-robbers.”  
“If you’re a bank-robber, I can be your Bonnie,” I smirk.  
“Bonnie and Clyde die at the end,” Daniel tells me, mock seriously.  
“Sure,” I agree, “But so does everyone.”  
He laughs, “I guess that’s accurate, but beside the point. Do you trust Eli’s judgment?”  
“Duh.”  
“Alright, then,” He nods, “Explain to me why Thomas’s hair is blue.”

 

We’re both severely underdressed for the seafood place Daniel takes me to, even if they could ignore his damp jeans. He manages to sweet talk a manager into serving us at a picnic table on the back porch though, which I’m sure is supposed to be used as a break table for their employees. The restaurant is built over the ocean, and every few minutes the tide splashes up between the boards sprinkling us with salt water, but we get to eat fancy shrimp scampi out of styrofoam boxes, watching the sun set. It’s incredibly good.  
I’m contemplating slurping the last of my pasta out of the container and tapping the water on my foot off onto Daniel’s when he asks, “How’s Sam?”  
“Sam’s Sam,” I grin, “He’s always good, but I haven’t seen him lately, he’s trying to get into runaway, so he’s living in New York.”  
Daniel’s face does something complicated.  
“Speaking of New York, are Corbyn and Jack still thinking about getting a place there?” I fish a piece of ice out of my drink to crunch on.  
Daniel shrugs, “Maybe? But we’re never really in one place long enough for it to matter. I know Christina was supportive, but I think it just freaked Brooke out.”  
“Understandable. I’d get nervous too, if my boyfriend wanted to buy a place in a city he couldn’t live in to be closer to me.”  
“That’s why they’ve tabled the idea for now,” He spins a fork in his spaghetti, “but we’re probably going to let the lease lapse on the Los Angeles house next year.”  
“Where are you going to go?”  
“We’ll rent something smaller. We’ve seen a few nice four bedrooms. There’s too much space we’re paying for and not using in this one. Even if those guys weren’t flying to New York every chance they get, I’ve got a room at my parents’, and Jonah and Zach nearly never sleep at the band house either.”  
I look up from drawing a patterns into the condensation on the table, “Zach?”  
“Has attached himself to Jonah and Eli like the world’s most stubborn third-wheel?” Daniel shakes his head, “Pretty much. They didn’t help themselves though, they bought him his own dresser for the guest room.”  
“That’s adorable, they’re like a happy little family,” I smirk.  
He smirks back, leaning closer across the table, “Jack bet me thirty bucks Zach’ll be calling Jonah ‘Dad’ by Christmas.”  
I laugh so hard a waitress comes outside to check on us.

 

“So, my sister is out of town,” I inform Daniel when he pulls up to the apartment I share with her. We share it in the loosest sense of the word, since I’m out of town a solid forty weeks of the year, and she always seems to find somewhere else to be when I am here. It's dark now, the last of the sunlight disappeared over the two hours drive but I still enjoyed it, being in Daniel's company and watching the stars come out, at least until we got back to Los Angeles.  
He parks in a space in front of our building, but doesn’t shut off the car.  
“You aren’t coming up?” I study his jawline.  
“Not tonight,” He his grip goes tighter on the steering wheel.  
“Oh,” I try to find my shoes in the floorboard, “Band stuff?”  
“No, I just,” Daniel sighs, “I can’t tonight.”  
I narrow my eyes at him, slipping my shoes on, “Okay, Cryptic.”  
“Sorry,” He meets my eyes, “You’ll call me?”  
“Yeah,” I lean across the car’s center console to press a kiss against his cheek, “I’m going to Greece for a job next week, but I’ll call.”  
“Europe’s our next stop too,” He tells me as I climb out, “Maybe we’ll cross paths?” He holds out his jean jacket to me.  
I snatch it out of his hand before he can think to take it back, “I’d like that.”  
I linger in there for a minute, then step away to close the car door, “Goodnight, Daniel.”  
“Stay safe, Angelina,” His smile seems wrong somehow, but he waits in the parking lot until I wave him off after unlocking my apartment door, like he hadn’t just fumbled his way into turning me down. Like that’s somehow normal.

 

 


	5. Hollywood

**Daniel.**

  
**“That’s not normal,” Jack groans, “Dimples is not, and has never been, a normal answer to that question.”**  
**Corbyn hangs his head, “Seriously, Zach.”**  
**“I didn’t know what else to say,” Zach cries, “That’s just the first thing that crossed my mind! At least I didn’t say her name this time.”**  
**Corbyn gives him a look, “It’s not the same, and you know it. The whole world knows about Christina. People just thought it was sweet when you said that.”**  
**“Shut up, bro,” Zach pushes him away.**  
**“It isn’t true, anyway,” Jonah slings an arm around Zach’s shoulders, his face not as furious as I anticipated, given Zach just gave a major hint about his secret relationship out on live radio. I was expecting him to get the cold shoulder, minimum.**  
**“You don’t like her dimples?” Zach looks almost comically hurt at the thought.**  
**Jonah laughs, “Of course I do, but that’s not the first thing I noticed about her.”**  
**“Her height?” Jack guesses. Next to Eli’s dimples, I’d think her height is her most notable feature too.**  
**“No,” Jonah pushes Zach into the sprinter van, “From what I can remember, I noticed how serious she was, and that she took us seriously, and my only thought was how very, very screwed we were.”**  
**“True, dude. True,” Jack nods.**  
**Zach nods along, “But like physically?”**  
**“Probably her eyes?” Jonah shrugs, climbing in next to Zach, “I’ve always liked green.”**  
**Zach nods again, then finds Corbyn, “Wait, so what’s your real answer, if I can’t say Christina either?”**  
**Corbyn rolls his eyes, “Probably her smile? But I mostly just liked how fucking cool she was. She was, like, put together, even when we were sixteen.”**  
**“She’s so out of your league,” Jack teases, climbing in the second to last row.**  
**“Oh, like Brooke’s in yours?” Corbyn throws back, landing in the seat next to him.**  
**“Nah, but that was the actually first thing I noticed about her. She was totally unfazed by us, she didn’t care I was famous, and she just shook our hands,” Jack answers.**  
**Zach smiles, “I remember that. She still won’t hug me now.”**  
**“Probably since she’s my girlfriend,” Jack reaches up to mess with Zach’s hair.**  
**“I don’t get why those ‘first thing you like about a girl’ questions are so popular anyway,” I remark, pitching myself into the back of the van.**  
**“It’s like, what are they expecting us to say?” Jack forces his voice higher to mimic Zach, “Funny you should ask, ‘cause the first thing Daniel notices about a girl is her cup size.’”**  
**“Man, shut up,” I kick his seat, “Someone could hear you.”**  
**“And say what?” Corbyn laughs, “Breaking, this just overheard; despite his sad, nonexistent, dating life, Daniel likes tits.”**  
**Tyler chuckles in the front seat, and the rest of the band joins him.**  
**“I hate all of you.”**  
**“Too bad you’re stuck with us,” Zach grins.**  
**“I could disappear at the airport tomorrow. You never know,” I sprawl out on the seat as the van starts moving. That was the last of a long line of promotional interviews in the states until after our European run and the album drops, so the whole band is riding the fine line of excitement and exhaustion. It makes for weird conversation, “I could make a new life for myself in France.”**  
**“Too bad your french is shit,” Jack grins at me leaning over the seat back.**  
**Corbyn smirks copying Jack’s pose, “And you love us, truly.”**  
**Our driver hits the breaks then, and they both go flying. I just smile at them while they nurse their injuries. Karma’s a beast.**

 

 **We’ve been in Europe for roughly twenty-four hours when we manage to lose Zach, which is impressive since we spent the first thirteen of those hours asleep at our hotel.**  
**During our first trips overseas as a band, we all snuck out at various points, and took our punishments with a grain of salt. It was an inconvenience when one of us was missing, not a disaster.**  
**It’s a disaster now.**  
**The bigger we get, the more followers we have, the more trouble going out alone creates. Jack nearly caused a riot trying to Christmas shop with his sisters in California this year. Mall security had to call the police to escort them out, and that was months ago.**  
**Tyler made it very clear, commandeering the entirety of first class to lecture us (and Brooke and Christina who joined our trip at JFK airport) along with several unsuspecting businessmen, that if we disappeared this time, it would be very bad and everyone would regret it.**  
**We still misplace Zach during dinner at a cafe shut down entirely for us.**  
**Zach’s the baby, seventeen and thinks himself immortal, so this isn’t completely unexpected.**  
**It is, however, going to turn my brother’s hair prematurely gray, if Zach doesn’t answer his phone in the next ten minutes.**  
**Jack noticed his disappearance first, ducking out to check if he’d gotten lost on the way to the bathroom, then informing Jonah and I that we’re down a member.**  
**Jonah subtlety gets Eli’s attention, tilting his head towards Zach’s empty seat, and I would fascinated by how easily she distracts Tyler, if I wasn’t as concerned that Zach’s outside being ripped to shreds by fans.**  
**Jack’s chews his nails nervously, glancing around the restaurant, while I dial Zach’s number yet again.**  
**“Thank Christ,” Jack swears, when Zach appears outside the front door.**  
**It’s not his return that has me clamoring out of my seat though. He’s got a very bemused looking Angelina behind him.**  
**I forget about Zach in order to hug her, “Angel.”**  
**“Danny,” I feel her smile against my chest.**  
**“I thought you were in London.”**  
**“Until about three hours ago,” She lifts her shoulders, her words muffled, “Surprise?”**  
**Eli clears her throat behind us, “Sharing is a virtue, Daniel.”**  
**“No, it’s not,” I start to tell her why, when I catch sight of the crowd peering into the glass front door, and drop my arms. ‘Opps,’ I mouth sheepishly to Angelina.**  
**She smirks while letting Eli sweep her into a hug.**  
**Angelina spends the rest of dinner being passed around, everyone clamoring for a piece of her. The only people who are completely unsurprised by her appearance seem to be the girlfriend gang and Zach. Tyler is especially thrilled she’s here, which makes me feel an ounce of guilt, but only an ounce. Maybe I should bring her around more, because they're all so happy she's here, but I hate sharing her attention.**  
**After we’ve cleaned the cafe out of both potato chips and profiteroles, Eli gets everyone taxis back to the hotel.**  
**“That’s it?” Christina is staring at Angelina’s bag like it might explode, “That’s all you brought? That’s everything?”**  
**Angelina nods, “I’m only booked to be in Europe for twelve days.”**  
**“Twelve days?!” Christina’s eyes are massive.**  
**I grab her duffle out of the trunk, “Well, it’s heavy enough.”**  
**“Twelve days,” Christina repeats.**  
**Corbyn laughs, “Just because you pack your whole apartment, doesn’t mean she does.”**  
**“I think that would imply Christina packs less,” Brooke pushes at her bangs, “New York City apartments are the size of shoeboxes, and you brought like eight of those.”**  
**“We’re here for week,” Christina says, matter-of-factly, “and, obviously, I need an extra pair for emergences.”**  
**“Obviously. Heels are the best known defense for the zombie apocalypse,” Brooke giggles.**  
**Their antics make Angelina smile, which makes me smile.**  
**“Okay!” Tyler gets our attention, standing with his chest puffed out like that makes him more intimidating, “It’s a long one tomorrow, guys. Eight o’clock breakfast call, so get some rest tonight, and remember,” He adds unnecessarily, “No one leaves the hotel.”**  
**“So, game night in my room?” Jack winks.**  
**Tyler moans, “Why do you do this to me?”**  
**I pat his back, following the crowd, “You gotta quit scheduling us so early, brother.”**

 **Game night started as a way to pass the time. When we formed the band, we were mostly underage and trapped for weeks at a time in the compound, plotting our first EP and working on branding. At the start, we played everything, X-Box, Playstation, several brutal rounds of monopoly, but we eventually settled on a particularly high stakes version of Truth or Dare, and a cutthroat, scorched-earth policy, type of Two Truths and a Lie.**  
**More people than I think are allowed in the fire code file into Jack’s room, and settle anywhere they can get a seat. Eli, Jonah, and Brooke end up on the floor. Jack sits on the edge of his bed, and Zach flop on the pillows piled against the headboard. Corbyn snags the desk chair to pull Christina down into his lap, which leaves Angelina and I with the sofa.**  
**“It’s Brooke’s turn,” Jack produces a thin-tip sharpie from nowhere, handing it down to her. I’m positive it’s Jack’s turn, but no one calls him on it.**  
**Brooke pulls the lid off the sharpie with her teeth, setting the marker to Jack’s pants and starting to scribble before she commands, “Lie to me, E.”**  
**Eli scrunches her nose, then counts off on her fingers, “Jayden was my first kiss, I hate pineapple, and prefer tea.”**  
**“You’re entirely made up of coffee and pointe shoes,” Brooke snorts, “So, by process of elimination, you’re lying about the pineapple thing or Jayden.”**  
**Eli gives nothing away.**  
**“I wish Milo was here,” Brooke sighs, and it makes half the room laugh, including Eli.**  
**“Milo is Eli’s tell,” I let Angelina in on the joke, and she grins.**  
**“You hate pineapple.” Brooke decides, barely looking up from her jean canvas.**  
**“Correct,” Eli nods.**  
**“That’s so random,” Christina muses.**  
**“I really want to know why you kissed Jayden,” Jack leans forward, careful not to disturb Brooke.**  
**“Dance,” Jonah answers easily, “She was eleven, and two months later he told her he liked boys too.”**  
**“I met Milo a year after that, and told Jay I’d found his husband.”**  
**“I can’t believe they let you tell that story at their wedding,” Jonah muses.**  
**Eli tucks her legs up to rest her chin on her knee, “Stubbornness has no effect on the truth. Jack?”**  
**Jack is enthralled by Brooke doodling on his jeans, and only answers when Eli calls his name a second time, “I picked my sister’s name, my mom hates my tattoos, and I would never go to Mars.”**  
**Corbyn gasps in an over-exaggerated display of shock at Jack’s last reveal.**  
**Eli doesn’t blink, “You have matching tattoos, don’t slander your mother.”**  
**Jack shrugs, “I tried,” while Brooke laughs against his knee. “Christina?”**  
**“Which sister did you name?” She tips forwards on Corbyn’s lap.**  
**“Isla,” Jack answers, “I picked her middle name, but distraction doesn’t mean you get out of playing.”**  
**“Fine,” Christina jokingly spits, pursing her lips. “Corbyn is the most patient person in my life, my favorite color is green, and my dog’s favorite toy is an angry bird.”**  
**“Corbyn is the least patient person on the planet,” Jack huffs, “Try harder next time.”**  
**“Nope,” Christina pops, “My favorite color is white.”**  
**“What?” Zach jerks upright, “Corbyn? That Corbyn? Our Corbyn?”**  
**“Hey!” Corbyn protests, “I’m only impatient when you’re slow, and because it’s not like you ever come out looking pretty,” He tucks his chin over Christina’s shoulder, “I’d wait forever for her, because she’s worth it.”**  
**“Ew. And also,” Zach starts.**  
**“Angi?” Christina interrupts him.**  
**“Yes,” Angelina blinks at her.**  
**“Two truths and a lie, please,” Christina grins.**  
**Angelina thinks about it for a minute, chewing on her lip, before settling on, “I wanted to be a veterinarian when I was in kindergarten, my hair is naturally straight, and I’ve never had a boyfriend.”**  
**Christina scoffs, “You’re, literally, a model. You can’t have not had boyfriends.”**  
**“Is that your final answer?” Angelina asks.**  
**“No,” Christina shakes her head, “It’s the hair thing, but you have to be lying about the boyfriend thing too.”**  
**“I’m not,” Angelina rests back against me, “I’ve never dated anyone seriously enough to call them my boyfriend.”**

**I know that’s true, but it’s also reassuring. Labels mean something to Angelina. She’s never wanted to give them to anyone unworthy of them.**

**This admission is proof, whatever she’s doing with Sam, it isn’t serious yet.**  
**“Never?” Brooke looks away from her art to study her.**  
**“I think I’d know,” Angelina blushes, “I get to pick the next victim now, right?”**  
**“Go for it,” I encourage, and she does, taking Zach down hard. Poor kid didn’t know what hit him.**

 **Game night is sort of sacred, among the band, and getting to watch Angelina hold her own with us makes me equally proud and melancholy. She fits in so seamlessly, exploiting all their weaknesses and understanding everyone’s sense of humor. We’re a tough crowd, but she has the most winning personality. She's always been able to make friends with anyone.**  
**I blush through half the game, Christina making a point to be ruthless because she knows years of exposure still haven't made me comfortable with her brand of honesty, but the way Angelina snickers at it makes up for everything. My embarrassment is completely canceled out by her joy. It causes me physical pain, thinking about all the times I don’t get to have her for this. I can’t seem to keep that off my face, so when Brooke starts nodding off and Jack kicks us out, Eli catches me in the hall to whisper in my ear, “You should talk.”**

 **I ignore her though, leading Angelina to my hotel room. I dumped her suitcase on the bed before we went to Jack’s room, and hadn’t considered what a wreck I’d already made this place. About a third of my clothes are strewn over the bed, most of my shoes are on the floor, and I left my towel hanging on the doorknob. It’s not the worst mess she’s caught me in, but close.**  
**If she notices, she doesn’t care, and we fall into domesticity effortless while getting ready for bed. We brush our teeth side by side over the bathroom sink, and I wash my face while she braids her hair. I slip past her to hustle out of my jeans and into the bed before Angelina can turn off the tap.**  
**She emerges beautifully barefaced and wearing my tee shirt from yesterday, which I must have left in there. I shut my eyes immediately and pretend to be asleep, until she puts the lights out and crawls up the mattress next to me.**  
**Angelina wraps her arm around me, “I know you aren’t sleeping.”**  
**“Almost,” I protest, cracking one eye open to see her smile in the dark.**  
**“Does that mean you’re too tired for?” Her face gets closer to mine. I can smell the mint on her breath, and know if I kiss her now, she’ll taste like my toothpaste.**  
**I stretch as far away from her as I can, without moving away, “Yeah, I’m really jet-lagged.”**  
**She watches my face, before sighing, kissing the corner of my mouth, then laying her head down on my chest, “Okay…”**  
**Neither of us speak for several long minutes.**  
**“Daniel?”**  
**I hum in response.**  
**“You haven’t met someone, right? I’m not like…”**  
**“No. No,” I cut her off, “I haven’t met anyone. I’m just, tired,” I finish, somewhat lamely.**  
**I think this might be a good time to tell her it’s not me, it’s her. I can’t be the ‘other’ man in her life. I can’t do this with her if she’s dating someone else. Boyfriend-title or not.**  
**I shove that thought far away.**  
**“Just checking,” Angelina presses her face further into me, “I don’t want to overstay my welcome, or,”**  
**“You couldn’t,” I put my hand on her head, stroking her hair down, “Wherever I am, I always want you with me.”**  
**“Good,” She nods against me. “I missed you too, you know,” She sighs.**  
**“Goodnight, Angelina.”**  
**“‘Night,” She whispers back through a yawn.**

  
**I sleep like a baby, in that I sleep horribly, mostly in fits all night, repeatedly jerking awake to check she hasn't left, and listening to her breathe for hours.**  
**It's not the worst way to spend the night, all things considered.**

 

 


	6. Paris

 Angelina.

I sleep like baby, lulled to sleep by Daniel's heartbeat, deep enough that I don’t move until morning. Daniel has to drag me down to breakfast, with promises of croissants and coffee, and it's hard to wake up even for that. The rest of the band stumbles in behind us with Brooke and Christina, who pull me down to one end of the long table Tyler’s secured for everyone. When a reporter arrives a few minutes later, and Eli breezes in accompanying her, I understand our relegation. No one wants to talk about the girls attached to a boyband.  
Eli sits beside the reporter to be the boys’ buffer and act as their translator, since she speaks some stupid number of languages. The guys rely pretty heavily on her after she happened to catch Zach trying out his Spanish by telling a reporter in Spain he got pregnant falling offstage.  
Daniel laughed about that one for weeks. Apparently, no one could determine if Eli, that reporter, or Zach went more red.  
Now, they never do an interview in Europe without her.  
This morning’s interview is pretty quiet, as far as I can tell, until Jack accidentally asks in French for someone to pass a condom, instead of jelly. Zach chokes, but Eli only corrects Jack quietly before pushing the conversation away from his mistake, as is their usual media strategy to keep things from being written down, never act like they’re a big deal.  
The look in Daniel’s eye, however, from the instant Jack says it, is pure mischief. Zach might be the prankster, but Daniel can’t help himself sometimes, and I know there’s no way he’s going to let that go.

 

I manage to forget about whatever trouble Daniel’s planning though, in the absolute chaos of Why Don’t We promotion. They never get a break, and we’re run ragged by the time we get back to the hotel after dinner. There hasn’t been a moment of unplanned, undocumented, unaccompanied time since breakfast. I’m seeing visions of fluffy bathrobes and slippers when we finally cram into the elevator after dinner.  
When the lift reaches the floor most of the management, plus Daniel and I, are staying on, everyone else files off. The other guys and their girlfriends are one floor up, waiting crowded at the back of the elevator, but when Daniel and I start to exit, Eli snags both our shirts.  
“I have something for you to work on Daniel, sorry,” She tells him, a little too loudly, as the doors start to close. Tyler glances back at us but Daniel only shrugs.  
When the elevator starts moving again, Zach starts bouncing around, “We’re going out.”  
“What?” Daniel raises an eyebrow, but the other guys are just as confused. Christina too.  
“It’s the solstice,” Brooke lifts one shoulder.  
Jack glares playfully at her, swinging her hand in his,“So?”  
“La Fete de la Musique,” Eli chirps, as the elevator pings open, striding past us into the hall, squinting, “You’ll need hats.”  
“Wait,” Christina drags out the word, already smiling, “So this is an out, out thing? Like, I can dress you up.”  
Brooke starts to protest, but Eli somehow assents for all the girls, and we’re shoved in Corbyn’s room while the guys are marched off by Zach to find sunglasses and baseball caps.

Christina throws open her suitcase, which honestly seems bigger than she is, and starts tossing things out on to the floor.  
Brooke and I are checking out the view from this room when something black with buttons lands on her head.  
“Go put that on,” Christina instructs, “with Eli’s shirt.”  
“I’m really fine in this, Christina,” Brooke blinks at her, all mock innocence.  
“But you’ll really look great in that, Brookie,” Christina blinks back.  
“Fine,” Brooke grumbles, making her way to the bathroom.  
Eli pulls her shirt off over her head to hand it to Brooke, addressing Christina, “I’m not leaving like this.”  
Christina and Brooke laugh. I’m used to dressing rooms, and getting basically naked in front of near strangers, but Eli’s a whole new level of not modest, despite her fondness for oversized tee shirts. I guess a lifetime of ballet does that to a person.  
“If she’s making me wear,” Brooke holds up her pile of clothes, glaring at the thing with buttons, “whatever this is, you can go out like that.”  
Eli rolls her eyes, pushing the bathroom door closed on Brooke with her foot, “Christina?”  
Christina points to a pile of clothes on the bed, standing up holding a pair of jeans and shimmying the skirt she had on, off.  
Eli picks up a scrap of fabric, “This couldn’t cover my bellybutton.”  
Christina laughs, “That’s for Angi, the other dress is for you.”  
“Oh, you don’t need to…” I start to protest.  
Eli opens her eyes extra wide at me, and shakes her head once, while Brooke calls from the bathroom, “Trust me! It’s less painful just to go with it!”  
“Speaking of painful,” Christina moans, “Why are all of you so bad at relationships?”  
No one answers her, and she looks to me, “Seriously.”  
“Christina,” Eli says her name like a full sentence, neatly folding her shorts.  
“Nope,” Christina snaps, “You have absolutely no room to talk.”  
Eli twists her mouth to the side, then opens it again.  
“Nope,” Christina wags a finger her direction, “Not a word. You, Miss I-speak-six-languages-but-I’m-shit-at-communication, can’t say anything,” Her grin softens the blow a bit, “Jonah thought you were fucking Milo for months.”  
“He did not,” Eli rolls her eyes, pulling on the tunic Christina’s chosen for her.  
I stifle a laugh, because the very idea of Eli doing something remotely sexual with her very best, very gay, friend is ridiculous.  
“Well, Corbyn did,” Christina jumps in place to tug her jeans up.  
“I think Jack did too, or at least pining for your ex,” Brooke agrees walking out of the bathroom, the Prince shirt Eli had on is so long on her it covers half her thighs.  
“Point proven,” Christina declares, tying Brooke’s shirt back in a knot to reveal the black denim buttoned up skirt of her reluctant doll, “But you’re not allowed to talk either.”  
Brooke rolls her eyes, and Christina turns to narrow her eyes at me. She’s tiny, the shortest person in this room, but she’s got the biggest personality.

It seemed funny to me, at first, that these girls would be friends. They don’t make any sense on paper, other than their connection to the band.  
Eli’s cold, or that’s everyone’s first impression of her. She’s closed off, difficult to read, and permanently makes you feel like she can see straight through you. Eli’s magic when she’s dancing, or teaching, all effortlessness and authority, and she’s never mean, just intimidating. She's devoted, but unflinchingly, occasional brutally, honest. It makes Eli the kind of person you want in your corner.  
Brooke’s quiet too. She’s shy, not painfully so, but nearly. I didn’t get her with Jack when Daniel told me about them, but if you spend any time with them, they make perfect sense. She’s brilliant, ivy league obsessed with math brilliant, plus the most wicked sense of humor, all sharp tongued sarcasm that shocks people, because she seems so quiet, and she makes Jack laugh the most. Everything weird about him is ten times weirder with her around, and when he introduced us, I thought he had to be high. He’s not the giddy type, except Brooke makes him happy like that. It wasn’t hard to like her for that alone.  
Christina is the opposite of quiet. She’s the type of girl my Nana would say never meets a stranger. She’s enthusiastic about everything, and one of the most outgoing people I know. She’s an open book, in a way that is undeniably brave. She’s beautiful, determined, and smart.  
Which I guess are things they all have in common. They might have different interests and career ambitions that hardly overlap, but they’re real friends.  
I felt like I was becoming real friends with them too, until this…

Christina continues to glare at me while I have no idea what she’s expecting me to say.  
“I’m sorry?” I question.  
“You slept in his bed,” She throws her hands up.  
“That’s not,” I start, shaking my head. It’s been weeks since we’ve gotten close to doing anything like what I’m sure she’s accusing us of. Not that I’m counting, “We’re not…”  
“That’s his jacket,” Christina keeps talking, “His jacket, which I know for a fact he threatened to eviscerate Corbyn for sealing once.”  
I am currently wearing Daniel’s denim jacket. I’ve hardly taken it off since I got my hands on it after he took me to dinner in Malibu, almost a month ago. Whatever weirdness is happening between us right now, this is still the best, most comfortable thing ever.  
And it permanently smells a bit like his cologne.  
Christina continues, “You’re more obvious than Jonah and Eli, and he,”  
“Looks at her with literal heart eyes,” Brooke hurries to cut Christina off.  
Eli keeps her mouth closed.  
“So?” Christina crosses her arms, but her eyes are warm.  
“There’s nothing to say,” I pull the mini dress she’s chosen for me on, praying that distracts her.  
“Nothing to say,” She shakes her head, “I know you’re not stupid,”  
Christina’s interrupted by a series of rapid knocks on the door, and I’m reminded there is a God.  
Corbyn’s voice calls out, “Everyone decent?”  
“I mean, are we ever?” Brooke answers, lacing up her Doc Martin’s, and I hear Jack’s laugh from the hall.  
Eli opens the door for the guys to pile in, all dressed up like euro-trash club boys. They’ve swapped their tee shirts for button downs worn over their skinny jeans, and every single one of them has sunglasses on. Most of them are wearing hats too, even Jack who’s had to pull his hair back into a bun to get his on.  
Jack is in the middle of saying something about heading out when he catches sight of Brooke.  
His jaw drops all the way open, and no words come out. She does look incredible in that skirt.  
“Alright, bro,” Corbyn smacks Jack’s back, hard.  
“If Jack can get his tongue back in his mouth,” Zach smirks, “We should leave now.”  
Eli takes us down to the street via an precariously tilted ancient wooden staircase instead of letting us use the elevator.  
At the door Jonah says, “This is why we had to run from the back street this morning.”  
“I wanted to see if there was access from the front, and where the cameras are,” Eli tips her head up. The unspoken implication of her statement is that fans can’t get back here to wait on them like they do in front of the hotel, and the lack of cameras means no one will sell security footage of the band sneaking out to TMZ. “Where are we going, Brooke?” Eli spins a little to look at her.  
“To the eighteenth,” Brooke pulls what looks like a Metro map from her bag, “Then from Sacré-Cœur we’ll take the four line to Saint Micheal, it’s running late tonight, and it should be dark enough for anonymity by then.”  
“To Montmatre then,” Eli grins.  
“You would both be terrifyingly adept criminals,” Jack winks at his girlfriend, still absolutely besotted.  
“Hey!” Christina protests, “I helped too.”  
The group breaks into laugher, and I fall into step beside Daniel, our arms brushing together, and my eyes caught on the thin silver chain displayed between his half unbuttoned shirt. I mean to tell him he looks ridiculous, but what leaves my mouth is, “You look like someone I’d want in a club.”  
He smirks at me, his chin jutting up, and eyes still laughing, even while his cheeks color, “Cool.”  
His confidence makes me smile too.

 

The first arrondissement Brooke navigates us to is full of classical music. It sounds like being blanketed in an orchestra, with each piece only getting more distinct when we approach the musician.  
Daniel pauses halfway down the street, his arm over my shoulder making me halt too, when the rest of the group stops, everyone's eyes glued to a violinist playing something that makes my soul ache. It's so heartbreakingly beautiful.   
The sun has only just set, the light casing shadows, and the music seems like it’s always been here, as if it’s as much a part of the city as the Seine, like it belongs here.  
I whisper in Daniel’s ear, "I feel like I’ve never seen Paris before.”

“Please?” I can barely understand what Jonah is whispering beside us, with his hands resting on Eli’s shoulders. He’s begging, trying to coax her into something, “Go on. Please, Gorgeous, for me?”  
She wrinkles her nose, but only for a second, his second please doing her in.  
She toes off her sandals, and steps away from the group without looking back.  
Jonah watches with a huge self-satisfied smile.  
“You’re going to get us caught,” Daniel mutters, but Jonah just shakes his head.  
Eli approaches the violinist, speaking to him in french, before bowing.  
He bows back, over his instrument, and then she’s off.

She dances barefoot in the street better than any ballerina could on a stage.  
Eli swirls and kicks and leaps her way around the cobblestone, and Jonah tucks his hands in his pockets, watching her with so much appreciation it feels like I’m witnessing something private.

“That’s just unfair,” Christina declares with a smile after Eli lands an leap that had her hanging in midair so long it looked like she was floating.  
“She’s got her own gravity,” Jonah can’t take his eyes off her.  
At least, until Jack punches his arm, “Dude.”

Eli crumples to the ground with the final notes of the melody, and the crowd that formed around her claps politely. She and the musician bow to each other again, and Brooke starts tugging us along, away from Eli’s admirers, and people who might recognize the boys.  
Jonah slips fifty euros in the musician’s violin case as he walks by.

We’re several districts away when the group stops again, drawn in by the magnetism of latin music in the latin quarter.  
The quartet that stalls us is fantastic, playing to their audience with couples swirling in the street. Paris isn’t hot this time of year, but the atmosphere is here is.  
Jack shoulders past Daniel with Brooke following him, until he reaches the front.  
He holds out a hand, and I’m surprised when Eli takes it.  
“You’re going to get us caught,” Daniel mumbles again.  
Eli steals the hat off Zach’s head, pushing it down over her hair with a smirk in our direction.  
Brooke doesn’t react at all as Jack leads Eli out into the street, her hand settling on his shoulder and his hand landing on her waist.  
They move in a practiced merengue, all smiles and spins, and only slightly better than the other couples dancing. I’m positive Eli’s holding back, but shocked at how good Jack is.  
Corbyn distracts Daniel with a conversation about the bass guitar being played, and since Christina’s heels forced her to climb on Corbyn’s back several blocks ago, I’m left alone between Jonah and Brooke.  
“I thought he was taking you out there,” I glance at her.  
Brooke laughs, “I couldn’t do that, not even if Eli spent a year teaching me. Probably not even if she spent a decade. My body doesn't move like that.”  
Jonah chuckles along with her.  
“And it doesn’t bother you?” I push, while Jack dips Eli, their bodies flowing in time with the rhythm.  
“No,” Jonah arches an eyebrow, “She dances more intimately with people I don’t know everyday. I’m not the jealous type. I’ve got procession of what matters.”  
“How nice for you, Mr. Confident,” Brooke rocks back on her heels, but she’s still smiling, “I’m super jealous, perpetually, but when Jack and I were just talking, before I knew about,” She gestures vaguely at Jonah, “I thought Jack had a thing for Eli, and Jack thought that whole idea was hilarious.”  
“Yeah, no,” Jonah shakes his head, “They’d be terrible together.”  
“He said he didn’t think about her as a girl.”  
“Liar!” Jack protests, as he and Eli drift closer to us, “That’s a lie.”  
“Is it?” Eli dimples.  
“Yes,” Jack spins her out, “You’re, like, objectively ultra pretty, but you taught me how to use a laundry mat, and like, what a frittata is. Kissing you would be like kissing my sister.”  
Eli pats his check, “Thanks, Jack.”  
“You’re welcome,” Jack beams pulling Eli back into the fray of salsa dancing couples, and Brooke giggles.  
“So,” I nod, “Not jealous of that.”  
“Nope,” Brooke pops, “Just the two hundred girls that try to climb him during Meet and Greets every night.”  
When she doesn’t follow that up, I look to Jonah. He just holds his palms out, as if to say he doesn’t have an answer for that.  
I can’t say I blame him. 

We’re strolling through the seventh arrondissement when we find a DJ. He’s blaring American hiphop music, which seems dangerous, given my current company, but so far no one in the crowds has recognized any of us.  
Daniel starts dancing next to me on the sidewalk, and I follow his lead, both of us doing a silly side to side shuffle with the beat, occasionally knocking hips.  
Corbyn sets Christina down off his back to pull her into the crowd, and they dance together way more enthusiastically, mostly jumping with their faces precariously close while singing along.  
Jack keeps trying to coerce Brooke into dancing with him too, and failing to do anything but make her laugh while she swats his hands away.  
I get distracted watching Zach inch closer and closer to a group of college girls who keep making eyes at him, until Daniel shouts near my ear, “Where’d Jonah go?”  
I panic for a moment, because Brooke might have a map but Eli’s the one who speaks French, before spotting her. I tilt my head towards them, and see more than hear Daniel’s sigh.  
They’ve wandered to the very back of the crowd, but they’re both too tall to hide. Eli’s dancing with her back to Jonah, his hands splayed out over her, one on the side of her ribcage and the other on her upper thigh, which isn’t inappropriate but close, especially his face when she dimples at him over her shoulder.  
“He might as well tattoo ‘it’s shocking she isn’t pregnant by now with how hard we eye fuck’ on her forehead. It would be less transparent than that, ” Christina yells, suddenly next to me, and grinning back at them.

It’s strange, witnessing all the ways Jonah and Eli interact. It’s like they’re on a switch. When they’re in front of an audience, with reporters, or around people who might recognize them and catch them being too intimate for teammates, there’s nothing there. They act completely indifferent. In moments like this, however, there’s no hiding what they are to each other. I understand better now why the boys, and Christina and Brooke, give them hell for this. It would be just profoundly sad if they couldn’t make it funny.

“I think it’s sweet,” Brooke defends, pulling Jack back to our circle by the hand, then calling out to the lovebirds behind us, “Let’s move, before we lose Zach.”  
Eli disentangles herself from Jonah to fetch Zach, wrapping her arms around him from behind while she says something in French that makes his harem of admirers giggle.  
She marches Zach away from them and leads us on, keeping one had firmly around his wrist. Jonah walks behind them, enjoying Zach’s extremely putout expression.  
“They were so pretty,” Zach whines as the music fades, "What did you say to them?"  
Eli smirks, “I told them it’s past your bedtime, mon petit chou.”

 

When we finally get back hotel, it’s two thirty in the morning, my blisters have blisters, and Brooke has fallen asleep on Jack’s shoulder standing up in the elevator.  
Daniel and I sneak out on our floor, and stay silent until the door clicks shut behind us in his hotel room.

I kick my shoes off, and collapse on the bed. Staring up at the ceiling, I listen to Daniel brush his teeth, and turn on the fan.  
“The girls know.”  
“What?” His voice sounds as tired as I am.  
“The girls know, Daniel,” I don’t look at him, “That we’re… That sometimes we, occasionally, you know.”  
My Dad always says never do anything you wouldn’t admit to aloud.  
I don’t have the vocabulary for this though, whatever this is going on between us, this mess of physical slash more than friends slash feelings that has become our relationship.  
“Uh,” I feel him sit down on the edge of the bed, “I um…”  
“Christina guessed, I think. Brooke too.”  
“Christina has stopped trying to set me up every time I’m in New York,” He sighs, “Are you? I mean, is that, okay?”  
“It’s fine,” I still can’t turn towards him, “Have you told the guys anything?”  
“Just Jack,” He settles back into the bed, laying down beside me, “And, ah, Eli.”  
“What?” I finally glance at him.  
“She’s known the whole time,” He shrugs, “I sort of confirmed it, a while ago, but I think she knew from the start.”  
“She didn’t saw a word when Christina started in on me.”  
“That’s Eli,” He yawns, then starts to reach for me, freezing with one hand hovering over my shoulder, “Do you, um… Do you want to talk about it?”  
I yawn, and don’t have to think about my answer, “Not right now.”  
Relief floods his features as he reaches past me to turn off the light. I press into his chest, feel his arm wrap around me, and fall asleep nearly instantly.

I don’t know how much longer we can go on like this, he’s the person I talk about everything with, and I know not talking about this is crazy, but I’m just not ready to face the music.

 

 


	7. London

**Daniel.**

  
**“Time to face the music,” Zach straightens up before walking out into the hotel lobby from the elevator. He misses the way Angelina flinches at that, but I don’t.**  
**I put my arm over her shoulders to draw her closer, “It’s just Tyler,” I remind her, “Plus we didn’t get caught. The most we’re in for is a strongly worded lecture.”**  
**Tyler’s got a clipboard and an unimpressed expression as he completes a head count. He stops in front of me, looking down at me despite his hardly taller stature, “Where were you last night?”**  
**Corbyn answers for me, “We went up to Eli’s room for a while. She’s gotten all particular about that tilt when we,”**  
**“Really?” Tyler cuts him off, “You were in Eli’s room? All of you?” He glances around the circle, “That’s weird, since I knocked on her door at midnight to see if you wanted pizza, and no one answered.”**  
**“What, man?” Zach tries to play innocent, “We were all in bed by then. Y’know, lights out and everything by like eleven.”**  
**“So the video trending on Instagram of a girl ballet-ing it up the street last night isn’t Elijah?” Tyler raises an eyebrow at her, “And the guys in American baseball caps around her aren’t you idiots?”**  
**“Funny coincidence?” Jack attempts to keep the guilt off his face.**  
**“Angi is still wearing the same outfit,” Tyler looks mildly amused and disappointed at the same time.**  
**“This is my favorite jacket,” Angelina shrugs. She’s known my brother through all his awkward years, and she’s always scared him more than he could scare her. I guess the same is true of me.**  
**“It’s my jacket,” I protest. It looks incredible on her, but everything does, and I do want it back someday.**  
**Tyler sighs, rubbing his temples, “Just go get breakfast.”**

**During a photoshoot last month, Jack dumped fifteen gallons of Gatorade over my head when he decided he had enough of my complaining about the heat. The photograph of his mouth wide-open laugher and the icy blue liquid pouring over my shocked face ended up in a magazine. His language mixup yesterday was almost too obviously a setup that I nearly couldn’t do it, but payback is my favorite type of prank, and he deserves it.**  
**Yesterday, I didn’t have the right supplies and this isn't the kind of thing I want to read about it in the press, so at the time I did nothing, but I did spend the rest of the day bringing the other guys in on my scheme.**  
**Over the duration of breakfast today, Zach steals all the jam from the table. He strategically places it on the far side of his plate, way out of Jack’s reach.**  
**Corbyn played his role before we arrived, sneakily handing out condoms like some sort of dealer after he got them sent to his hotel room because he has a long-term girlfriend traveling with us and a general lack of modesty that means even if it got out he’d done that, he would shrug it off.**  
**The food is all but gone when Brooke unknowingly gives me an assist, complaining about eating a dry croissant, looking despondently down the table at Zach’s collection of preserves.**  
**Jack takes the bait, looking down the table at Zach while shaking his head, “Yo, Zach,” He holds out a hand, “You can’t eat all that jelly, gimme one.”**  
**Simultaneously, every member of the band drops a handful of condoms into his palm. We manage to keep straight faces for roughly thirty seconds, and Jack’s sputtering is glorious.**  
**Eli attempts to hide her reaction, but has to smile at Jonah’s smirk.**  
**Angelina can’t resist either. “Oh my god, Jack. Your face,” She snickers.**  
**“So that’s why you ordered those,” Christina clues in.**  
**I’m tempted to ask why else she thought he might have done that, but I accidentally read Corbyn’s messages once, and I’m confidant once was enough to know more about their private life than I ever wanted to.**  
**Brooke laughs so hard she falls off her chair.**

**My back cracks when I yawn while stretching in the lobby surrounded by our luggage later that night.**  
**Tyler throws his arm around me, digging his thumb into my neck in what I think might be his version of a massage, “Bro, I told you we could get Angi her own room. You’re too tall to sleep on the sofa.”**

**I envy Angelina’s complexion regularly, because her tan makes it harder for her to get sunburnt, and also because it’s basically impossible to see her blush.**

**Christina coughs, and I have to will my face not to heat.**  
**“It was fine,” I shrug Tyler off to pick up Angelina’s bag and grab her hand, “We always share rooms,” I pull her out the door before anyone can respond.**  
**As a rule I hate lying, especially to my big brother, but that guilt is irrelevant the moment Angelina squeezes my hand while everyone else follows us outside.**

 **Sprinter vans are our home at this point, our seating chart mapped out over years of riding in these things so that there’s no discussion needed as we climb up in the dark. I’m grateful because it’s barely after one in the morning and we’re hardly more than jet-lagged, sleep-deprived, zombies. I’d rather get run over than argue about where to sit.**  
**Eli and Jonah take the last row, Angelina and I land in front of them, Corbyn and Christina in the third row, and Jack sits between Brooke and Zach closest to the front. Tyler and our manager play Tetris cramming all out luggage into the trunk before taking shoot-gun and the driver’s seat.**

 **We leave the hotel quietly from the back, using the same escape route from last night which guarantees no fans stall us, not that they would anyway, since the rational people in this city have gone home to sleep.**  
**Angelina manipulates me into the window seat, then tucks herself down to lay her head in my lap, lifting my hand to her head in a silent command to play with her hair.**  
**I can’t refuse her anything, so I watch the city go dark, running my fingers through her curls.**  
**I start nodding off after a few minutes, the bright glare of her phone as she checks into her flight isn’t enough to keep my eyes open.**

 **“If you could navigate, but only on this tank of fuel, where would you go?” Eli’s voice jerks me away from sleep before I can fall into it. I know it wasn’t her intention. She’s whispering, her voice low and soft and her question meant for Jonah, but they’re right behind me, and I’m not a heavy sleeper.**  
**“How close is Prague?” Jonah rasps his reply.**  
**“Too far,” Eli sighs.**  
**“I still want you to take me there,” Jonah concedes, “But I’d send us to Valencia. Anywhere you’d speak Catalan.”**  
**“Jo,” Eli sighs, “I can’t,”**  
**“But you do,” Jonah insists.**  
**They rarely communicate like this, not with an audience, not even when it’s just the band. I’m sure they think we’re all asleep, since that’s the only time I ever catch them in this. Their couple’s shorthand, this almost banter, is intimate for them, and I could never interrupt.**  
**Christina doesn’t have that same inclination, “Why would you pick Prague?” She drawls, tiredness brining out her New York accent, “Nobody likes Prague.”**  
**Corbyn groans, “Christina, of course people like Prague.”**  
**“It’s just a weird pick. It’s like, not-Russia Russia, right?” She looks between the seats at Eli for confirmation.**  
**“Eli danced at the National Theater, once,” Jonah explains, his voice still hushed, but not as low as it had been when he was only speaking to Eli, “It looked incredible, and I want to see it in person.”**  
**“And we watched a House Hunters feature there last week,” Eli dimples.**  
**“Oh,” Christina drags the word out, “That makes more sense. That stuff always makes me want to do something crazy.”**  
**“Crazy?” Angelina questions, without bothering to move her head up from my thigh.**  
**“Yeah,” Christina nods, a silhouette in the dark, “Like, I read this book about dog-sledding, and then I was set on racing in the Iliad.”**  
**“Iditarod,” Corbyn corrects her, smothering a laugh, “And you wouldn’t make it past the airport in Juno. You can’t stand being cold.”**  
**“Whatever,” Christina shrugs, “It’s still inspiring. Even if the cold does suck.”**  
**“I read that Wild book,” Brook interjects, sounding half-asleep too, “with my mom’s bookclub and then for like, six months, all I wanted to do was hike from Mexico to Canada. And I hate hiking.”**  
**Christina giggles, “Totally.”**  
**“I’m like that too,” Angelina confesses, “One good story about a place, and I’m there.”**  
**“Your problem is in the follow through,” I remind her, “You’ll do anything once. Remember that time you signed up for snowboarding in the Alps, and you’d never touched a board before?”**  
**“That was the most fun,” Her voice is pure longing, “I saw a documentary on Kilimanjaro recently. I’d love to do that, if I had the time.”**  
**“Maybe when we’re older,” I agree, because I can’t help myself. She’s the only person I’d spend weeks hiking up a mountain with, because I know she would make it fun.**  
**“See?” Brooke turns on Jack, “See how easy that is? You’re supposed to just jump in on things like that with me.”**  
**“I don’t think so,” Jack rolls his eyes, “Because the lesson you took from that Food, Pray, Sex book was to spend a month in Italy and buy new jeans.”**  
**“Eat, Pray, Love,” Eli pushes her hair away from her face.**  
**“Gluttony, Enlightenment, Passion. Same difference,” Jack retorts, cracking everyone up.**  
**“What about you, E?” Christina leans her head back against the head rest, “Do you get wanderlust reading about crazy things?”**  
**“No,” Eli shakes her head a little, “Crazy doesn’t appeal to me.”**  
**“No?” Jonah scoffs, “Crazy doesn’t appeal to you, unless we’re counting standing en pointe on Milo’s non-dominate palm on a sixth floor balcony,” He playfully pulls on her braid, “Which, I do. You do dangerous stuff all the time.”**  
**“That wasn’t dangerous. 'lo wouldn’t drop me,” Eli protests.**  
**“You almost broke his nose,” Jonah deadpans.**  
**Corbyn grins, “It made a killer picture though.”**  
**“We got into attitude too,” Eli grins back, “But there was a wobble, Jonah nearly had a heart attack, and Jayden couldn’t get another picture.”**  
**“I’m just attached to the current location of your skull,” Jonah presses his nose against the side of her head, his eyes closed, “y’know, connected to your body.”**  
**“Glad you don’t want to off our choreographer, bro,” Corbyn yawns, slouching down to rest his head on Christina’s shoulder.**  
**Angelina and I grin at each other over their ridiculousness, streetlights illuminating our faces.**

**Charles de Gaulle is possibly the worst airport in the world. The fact that we’re here to swap Angelina for Jack and Brooke’s sisters isn’t winning it any extra points either.**  
**Jack had recognized this as a poor trade for me, and to convince him it was fine I had to explain that Angelina has work and I’m, slightly, above begging. He's still looked at me like I'm pitiful all day. The truth in that only makes it worse.**  
**I never want her to leave.**

 **I help Angelina down from the van, and move to hug her when Brooke’s sister barrels past us into Brooke. Sydnie, Jack’s oldest sister, follows leisurely wearing sunglasses in the dark.**  
**“Whoa, Lake,” Brooke shoves her twin away after a minute, “Remember personal space?”**  
**“I haven’t seen you in weeks,”**  
**“Days.”**  
**“And,” Lake continues like Brooke hadn’t spoken, “we gave up personal space when we decided to spend nine months together in the smallest of spaces.”**  
**Lake and Brooke aren’t identical, but they’ve got the same features; dark brown eyes, pointy chin, and pin-straight hair that Lake curls at the ends. Their similarities end there though, their personalities are crazy different.**  
**“I can’t decide if you’re referring to our dorm room or when Mom was pregnant, but either way, I had no say in it,” Brooke holds her sister back, and Jack sweeps in to greet her more eagerly after saying hi to Sydnie.**  
**This interaction tempers the sadness of our goodbye, and Angelina lets go of me with a smile, “I have to go.”**  
**“Call me when you land,” I don’t stop her because I know I have to let her.**  
**“Always,” She loops her duffle bag over her shoulder.**

 **The van hasn’t pulled away yet, when Angelina turns around at the front doors. She meets my eyes, holds a hand up to her mouth, and yells, “Love you, Daniel!”**  
**“Love you too, Angel,” I mouth back, exaggerating my words, to watch her smile.**  
**“It sucks leaving your girlfriend,” Lake gives me a sympathetic look as the we move forward into traffic.**  
**“We’re not,” I tell her at the same time the rest of the band answers in unison, “They’re not together.”**  
**Given access, I’d climb out a window to avoid the way Tyler is staring at me, looking like he’s never seen me before.**  
**“Wait,” Lake is clearly lost, “You aren’t dating her?”**  
**Brooke shakes her head no, and Christina groans, “Everyone on this van, altogether, has a collective relationship IQ of fifteen.”**  
**Brooke muffles her laugher into Jack’s chest.**  
**Lake just seems more confused, and Eli sighs.**  
**“You’re gonna have to explain that to me,” Sydnie turns to Christina, and I reexamine the window option.**

**From my perspective, the biggest difference between Jack’s girlfriend and her sister is how bashful Brooke is. Brooke shrinks away from attention, hides when Jack gets recognized in public, and refuses to take her social media off private. Unlike everyone else associated with the band, she has fewer than 1,000 followers.**  
**Lake’s indifferent to attention, like she’s pretty indifferent to most things, but she occasionally revels in pushing Brooke into it, by goading Jack into serenading her. Out of the band, Jack needs to be in the spotlight the least, but he does enjoying having eyes on him. No one would do this job if they didn’t. So he would walk around singing to Brooke anyway, without the encouragement of her sister and his, but he lets them pressure him into it in shopping malls and subway stations, just to make her blush.**

 **We’re in Trafalgar Square, taking pictures with the lions and messing around, when Sydnie starts in on Jack.**  
**“This is the perfect background,” Sydnie smirks, looking at the statues.**  
**“Syd,” Brooke complains.**  
**I understand, we’re with a crowd, but this is the kind of crowd we can get lost in. There’s far more career people walking past us than teenagers, and half the band isn’t here, which means we haven’t gotten noticed yet.**  
**Sydnie doesn’t care about that though, she just likes to make Jack sing, “I bet these buildings have great acoustics.”**  
**“There’s a million taxis right there,” Brooke gestures towards the road.**  
**“That’s an exaggeration, there’s, like, ten,” Lake takes her sister’s hand.**  
**Zach starts to get in on it too, “I’ll do it, if you do it,” He looks to Jack.**  
**“Please don’t,” Brooke groans.**  
**“Please do,” Lake begs.**  
**Sydnie laces her hands under her chin, “Please, Jacko?”**  
**“You know I love you both, but I’d also really enjoy pushing you into traffic,” Brooke pulls away from her sister, “Can’t we just enjoy this? Why do you always have to cause a ruckus?”**  
**“You picked the pop-star, warugaki,” Lake teases.**  
**“Come on, little brother, sing something for us?” Sydnie bats her eyelashes.**  
**Jack had been watching this scene play out, smirking in the sidelines, but he nods at Sydnie’s question, glancing at me, “Daniel? Are you in?”**  
**“If you are,” I lift one shoulder, if they're going to get us recognized, I’m at least going to be part of the problem.**  
**“Cool,” Zach jumps up.**  
**“Up by the steps,” Sydnie directs, “The light’ll be better there.”**  
**“There’s no good light anywhere, Syd,” Brooke follows us, resigned, “We’re in London.”**  
**“Actually, I got a sunburn last time we played here,” Zach pipes up.**  
**“Because we went on that boat ride, and you refused to put on the sunscreen Eli chased us around with,” Jack reminds him.**  
**“It smelled like bees.”**  
**“It smelled like honey,” I rough up Zach’s hair, “and the rest of us didn’t have to peel the skin off our noses.”**  
**“Whatever,” Zach punches my arm, “What are we doing?” He looks to Jack.**  
**This is kind of his show. Jack looks past me to Brooke, “Think we could do Blank Space?”**  
**Zach mutters the chorus to himself, and I nod, “It’s been a while, but I think I’ve got it.”**  
**“I love that Brooke fangirls for Taylor Swift, and not you,” Zach’s smile is wicked.**  
**“I’d fangirl for Taylor Swift, the woman’s a genius,” Jack shrugs, “Ready?” He calls out to Sydnie. She gives us a big thumbs up, and Lake loops her arm through Brooke’s, presumably to keep her from running off.**

**Brooke covers her face with her hands, peeking out from behind her fingers before we even get through the first chorus. When we’re finished, smiling for Sydnie’s camera, Jack goes straight for Brooke. He takes her hands from her face and kisses to her flaming cheeks. It’s sickeningly cute.**

**I’ve never thought about serenading anyone, not genuinely, and I doubt I’d ever want to, except now I want to know what Angelina would do if I did.**  
**She’s not shy like Brooke, so I can’t imagine her hiding behind her hands and sarcasm, but she isn’t completely comfortable being the center of attention either, even after years of modeling.**  
**I wonder if she’d kiss me after, or play flight with me because now people are staring, the way Brooke does to Jack.**

**Unfortunately, I know exactly what I have to do to have a chance at finding out.**

 

 


	8. Topanga Beach

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Personal note (09/03/2018):  
> My Big Life Event is over, and was awesome. 
> 
> I'm sorry this took so long, but it's nearly finished, expect more updates on schedule.  
> Hopefully.
> 
>  
> 
> (Also 8 Letters is out now. So ridiculously proud.)

Angelina.

Something is going on with Daniel, and I have no idea how to find out.  
I’ve tried reverse psychology, coercion, and flat-out begging via text message, with no success. Whatever it is, he’s keeping his mouth shut.  
It would be fine, annoying but fine, for him to keep secrets from me, if I could just quit thinking about it.  
The problem is, I can’t.  
Daniel’s on my mind all the time, that’s not new, but this obsession over what he isn’t saying is getting ridiculous.

“And then the martians ate the oompa loompas and that’s how we got Cocoa Puffs…  
You are actually in outer space,” My sister sighs, “Yo,” She snaps her fingers in front of my face, “Earth to Angi.”  
“Amiera,” I turn to look at her.  
“Are you even watching this?” She gestures to the television.  
“I, ah…” I cringe, “Sorry.”  
Amiera shrugs, “You picked the movie.”  
I pick up the remove then hit pause, stretching my arms above my head.  
“So,” She pops, “are you gonna tell me about it?”  
“What are you talking about?” I squint at her.  
“Girl,” She gives me her patented big-sister-and-therefore-so-much-smarter look, “You’ve been in space since you got here, and that was days ago.”  
“It’s nothing,” I give her the television remote as I stand up, “I’m going to bed.”  
“It’s weird, y’know, that nothing is keeping you up pacing the kitchen at night,” Amiera calls out as I walk away, and I shut my bedroom door a little too hard. I really hate it when she’s right.

 

There’s a knock on my bedroom door hours later, what feels like minutes after I’ve finally fallen asleep.  
“Go away, Amiera. I don’t want to talk about nothing.”  
There’s a distinctly male laugh on the other side of the door, “Open your door, Angelina.”  
“Daniel,” I say his name in a yawn, “It’s two in the morning.”  
“Does that mean you won't to let me in?” His voice is so warm.  
“It wasn’t locked,” I mumbled while pulling the door open, “What are you going here?”  
Daniel’s propped himself up the doorframe, one hand on either side, filling the whole space. His eyes are dark, his hair smushed flat, and his clothes are wrinkled. He looks completely exhausted.  
He looks so good.  
I launch myself at his chest, wrapping my arms around his waist, breathing him in.  
“Oof,” Daniel huffs out, before folding his arms around me too.  
“It’s so late,” I whine, “Or it’s too early…”  
“Too late,” He agrees, moving us backward by rocking side to side keeping me pressed into him, almost like slow dancing. He lifts a hand to push the door closed, then resumes his careful calculated steps towards my bed. I never turn around, trusting him to get me there.  
The back of my knees hit the mattress and I sit down hard, blinking up at him.  
“Lay down, Angel,” Daniel whispers, and I listen.  
It only takes him a second to lose his jeans and kick off his shoes, before crawling in behind me. He pulls the blanket up, kisses my shoulder, and sighs in a bone-deep tired way I’ve never heard before.  
I want to ask, to push, to figure out what’s going on, but he starts rubbing slow circles on my back and I’m asleep in seconds.

 

He’s gone when I wake up in the morning. The only signs he was even here are the impression of his head on my pillow and the careful way my sheets are tucked around me.  
Amiera had to be at work early this morning. Chances are, her getting ready woke Daniel up and they left at the same time, meaning I’m guaranteed to get an earful about this later. My sister has this terrible habit of finding Daniel adorable and has had it in her head, from way before it was true, that Daniel and I shouldn't be strictly friends. I'm not sure if her theories were more frustrating before or after it was no longer hypothetical to me.   
I get in the shower instead of thinking about any of it.

I’m alone in the apartment sitting in my bathrobe when I hear a key in the door.  
I grab the blow dryer off my armoire on pure instinct, “Hello?”  
“It’s just me,” Daniel’s voice answers, and my shoulders lose their tension.  
I step out from behind my bedroom door, “You’re still here?” I squint at him, “And you’ve got coffee… and donuts?”  
“Yeah, I thought,” Daniel sets everything in his hands down on my bedside table before turning around to face me, “What are you doing with that?”  
“Self defense?” I offer, lowering the unplugged hair dyer I’m holding backwards, “I, um… I was going to throw it at whoever was breaking in.”  
Daniel stares at me, “You played soccer for a reason, Ange.”  
Of course he would remember how bad my aim is, “Maybe my hand-eye coordination has improved. It’s been years since softball tryouts.” I stick my tongue out at him.  
“It’s not been long enough for you to have gotten any good.”  
“Daniel,” I groan out his name, “What are you still doing here?” I realize I never got an answer to that question last night either.  
“Well,” He drags the word out, “I thought… I thought, maybe, we should talk.”  
My lungs go uncomfortably tight at the look on his face and the way he’s said that, “Talk about what?” I ask him, pointlessly. There's only one thing we don't talk about, the conversation we avoided in France.  
“Talk about you and me,” Daniel grips the back of his neck with one hand.  
“What about us?” I ask carefully.  
“Will you put that thing down?” He grimaces, “I’m getting worried you’re going to chuck it at me now anyway, regardless of what you’d hit. You’ll take out an eye or put a hole in the wall.”  
I sigh, setting the blow dryer back down on the counter.  
I look to Daniel, and when he doesn’t start talking, I lean up against the wall, “Well?”  
He exhales, then “I don’t want you to date other people, and I don’t want you to kiss anybody else, and I don’t want you to get a boyfriend,” He rushes out.  
My eyes might be the size of actual saucers now, “Excuse me?”  
“Shit, I mean…” His cursing cues me into how serious he is. Daniel’s boy-band media training, along with his parents, has all but eliminated cuss words from his vocabulary, unless he feels strongly about something. He sort of collapses, folding himself down to sit on the edge of my bed, muttering, “Sorry, Angel."

The nickname defrosts me, melting the gooey center that’s always been his. Daniel started calling me his angel when we were just kids, after I got in a fistfight with a kid on the playground who was making fun of him for singing. Daniel sent himself to the principal’s office with me, sat outside the door in chairs too big for us waiting on our parents, then to get me to laugh, he took my hand to tell me I was his protector, his avenger, and his friend, so I must be his angel. He was stupid smooth even at eleven.

It’s part of my brand now but still his secret name for me, whispered into embraces, over the phone whenever he needs a favor, and when I’ve had a bad day. I don't remember when it turned sincere, when the way he says it became less a way to make me smile and more a real term of endearment, only that it has. 

He breathes out heavily, “You have every right to tell me this is none of my business. I didn't mean to make that a demand, I know I'm supposed to ask, not tell, but… I keep picturing you with him, every time I close my eyes, and," Daniel fidgets, frustrated, “And I know you were excited, to go on that date, and he’s probably cool, he's probably great, but you haven’t brought him up again and…”

“Sam?” I squeak out his name. We only went out twice, and it was awful, but I guess I didn't tell Daniel that.  
“Angelina,” Daniel pins me with his eyes, “I'm serious. Do you… Are you opposed to any of that?”

I study him, still stuck to the wall.  
I know Daniel better than I know myself sometimes. He’s my person.  
I know every plane and dip of his body, every insecurity and talent of his mind. I know him.  
And so I know, if he really wants to have this conversation, we’re going to talk about it.  
I’m suddenly, shockingly, grateful for Sam, for both of our two sucky dates and planting the idea that maybe whatever this is, between Daniel and I, isn't one-sided.

“You’re so dense.”  
“What?” His eyes briefly flash hurt.  
I shake my head, unable to fight my smile, advancing towards him, “You really are.”  
“Angel?” He tips his head back as I get closer, keeping our eyes locked.  
“I’ve gone out with one guy in the past year,” I inform him, “and Sam is cool. He’s funny, and nice, and extremely good-looking,” Daniel flinches, but I keep talking, “And everything about him is wrong.”  
Daniel steadies me out of habit, when I step into his space, his hands settling on my hips even though he’s visibly confused.  
I pick up his hand, tracing the space between his fingers with one of mine, drawing an outline of his hand in the air, feeling the tough skin his guitar has built, “Sam’s hands aren’t the right size, or calloused in the right places,” I drop his hand to climb into his lap, my knees landing on either side of his hips, “His eyelashes have never made me jealous, there’s no character to his smile, and his laugh couldn’t compete with yours. Sam is cool, Daniel,” I lean my forehead against his, “But he isn’t you.”  
“Oh,” He grins at me so hard I swear his eyes glitter, “Okay then.”  
“Okay then,” I smile helplessly back.

I guess that's all the talk we need.

 

Fifteen minutes later, Daniel’s lost his shirt, and his phone is ringing shrilly somewhere that sounds suspiciously like it’s coming from underneath my mattress.  
“I should probably,” He looks around.  
“Answer that?” I supply, when the call ends, then immediately starts up again.  
Daniel gets on the floor, reaching underneath my nightstand to retrieve his phone.  
“Shoot,” He pulls a face, before answering, “Hey Anna.”  
I can barely make out the pitch of his sister’s voice on the other end of the line.  
“Yup,” He sits up, reaching for his shirt, “I’m on my way, actually, just stopped to see if Angi was in. I’ll be there in soon.”  
Anna must ask if I’m coming, because he looks up at me, asking silently, “Surfing?”  
I nod, like he even needs to ask.

 

Anna throws her arms around me so enthusiastically, I almost collapse.  
“I’ve missed you so much,” She tells me when she’s done trying to snap my spine.  
“I see how it is,” Daniel drawls, pulling our surfboards out of the car.  
“I missed you too,” Anna mock-punches his abs, laughing. Daniel pulls her into a hug, screwing up her hair, laughing too.  
She talks our ears off about college while we pull on wetsuits, then we take off for the water.

We lose the afternoon riding anything halfway decent and teasing each other for chasing the terrible waves. It’s simultaneously new, the way Daniel watches me and steals a kiss when Anna’s up riding away from us, and ancient since this is exactly the same thing we spent every weekend doing in High School; Anna tagging along, the three of us making triangles in the surf, searching for the perfect wave, and laughing until someone takes in salt water, then laughing even harder.  
It makes a perfect day.

We only come in from the ocean at dinner time, because we’ve all skipped lunch and Anna’s stomach is making so much noise it’s concerning. The three of us pile into Daniel’s car, and he takes us to some seafood shack with lobster rolls the size of my head. We eat on the hood of his car, sitting shoulder to shoulder watching the boats, and the surf, and the sunset.  
I feel lighter than I have in weeks.

I start yawning before my seatbelt’s on when we get back in the car, and Daniel gives me his sweatshirt to use as a pillow while we drive Anna back to her car. I fall asleep quickly, the result of my recent lack of sleep and a full day on the water. When I wake up, his sweatshirt has migrated from under my head to clutched in my arms, my face fully pressed into it.  
Daniel’s got one hand causally on my knee, the other on the steering wheel, and Anna is smirking so hard in the seat behind him, I wish bailing was an option in a car.  
“So,” Anna perks up when she notices my eyes are open, “When are you going to tell Mom and Dad?”  
“Anna,” Daniel hisses.  
“What?” She pushes her feet into the back of his seat, “She’s awake!”  
He glances at me to confirm this, then very consciously removes his hand from my knee.  
“Sorry about her,” He mouths.  
“Hey, watch the road,” Anna protests, “But really, when are you going to tell them?”  
“Tell them what?” Daniel attempts to play innocent, which I’m certain hasn’t worked on Anna since third grade.  
“About you guys,” She doesn’t say ‘duh’, but she doesn’t need to. It’s strongly implied.  
We both start talking over each other in an attempt to stop this line of questioning, “That’s not,” Daniel sputters. “We’re just,” I try.  
“Anna,” He meets her eyes in the rearview mirror, “You're imagining things. Whatever you think you saw, is nothing. I swear, we would tell them, and you, if there was anything to tell.”

It hurts, how easily that lie leaves his mouth.  
Or, what I really hope is a lie, because this morning felt like admitting this isn’t just anything to me.  
Daniel’s the center of everything.  
I don’t want to be nothing to him. I can’t.

Except, the horrible thought pops into my head unbidden, this morning when I was confessing Feelings, the only feeling Daniel expressed was jealousy. It turns my stomach.

Anna puffs out a breath like she’s going to call his bluff but I turn away, face the window to tune them out, and instead of responding she goes quiet.  
I’m almost asleep when she whispers, “We’d just be happy for you. Angi is already family. I think Mom’s been planning your wedding since the first time you brought her home, in elementary school.”  
“It’s not that easy, Anna,” I don’t have to look at him to know he’s rubbing at his forehead.  
“Why not?” She insists, “Not everything is complicated, Daniel. Occasionally, you do get something right on the first try.”  
“I don’t…” He says, “I can’t…"  
“Be a normal human and talk to her?”  
“It’s not like that,” Daniel sounds far away, “There’s a lot you don’t know, okay?”  
“Did you cheat on her?”  
“What?” His voice raises several octaves.  
Anna repeats, “Are you with anybody else?”  
“No,” He forces out, “I’d never. Not with anyone else.”

I knew that, intellectually, that he couldn’t be with someone else and not tell me. I knew he wouldn’t try to hold me to a double standard, but his confirmation helps cools the burning hurt from his effortless denial of us.

“And is she?” Anna leads.  
“No.”  
“So, you’re just a coward.”  
“Anna.”  
“She’s your orange juice, Danny.”  
Daniel makes a questioning sound. I’m lost too.  
“She’s your orange juice. She’s your consistency, the thing you always reach for and always want. What you’re always going to pick. You’re really good at your job, the preforming, the traveling, the interviews, the craziness that took over our lives; you’re really good at it, but it’s not you. You handle crazy, but love consistency. Angelina’s that, for you. If someone asks you what you want to drink, it’s always orange juice. If someone asks you who you want to do, literally, anything ever with, it’s always Angelina. I’ve known that since I was like ten,” Anna takes a breath, “I don’t know who you think you’re protecting, not being honest about this, but if you’re not telling her because you’re scared, you should know that’s bullshit.”  
“Language, Anna,” Daniel reprimands her, but that’s just a reflex.  
Neither of them speak for a moment, then he reaches for me, resting his hand on my head and messing up my hair, but it feels nice enough that I let him.  
“When did you get so smart, kid?” He asks his sister, clear wonder and amusement in his tone. It’s always been compelling to me, the way Daniel is with his siblings. My older sister is great, but we disagree about as often as we agree, and both struggle to be generous with each other. The Seavey siblings don’t have that issue. They genuinely like and impress each other, and I like that.   
“Sometime after I grew up,” Anna sasses him, and he takes his hand out of my hair to swat at her.  
After their low volume laugher dies down, Daniel sighs, “I guess you did. I wish I’d been there to see it happen.”  
“Alright, that’s enough self-deprecation,” I can almost hear Anna rolling her eyes, “You know you’re my favorite big brother.”  
“You’re only saying that because I pay your tuition,” Daniel’s tone is light.  
“Well, that doesn’t hurt,” Anna jokes, “But you also always answer my calls, even when you’re asleep in New Zealand, and never forget my half-birthday, and remember what type of English I want to minor in, and,”  
“Okay, okay,” Daniel huffs, pulling his car up next to hers, “I love you, too."  
“See?” Anna leaps out, “That’s not so hard to say now is it?” She knocks against the roof of the car, “G’night, Ange.”  
I pretend she’s woken me up, mumbling, “Goodnight, Anna,” but thinking about Daniel, loudly and with some urgency; we definitely aren't done talking.  

 


	9. Beverly Hills

**Daniel.**

**Having had the talk, I know how much better being done talking feels.**  
**Suddenly, I’m wearing a level of comfort and confidence I didn’t know I was missing, and have a seemingly inexhaustible amount of patience. I didn’t realize how much it weighed on me, not knowing what Angelina and I were doing, until I didn’t have to wonder anymore.**  
**The guys notice something has changed when they’re complaining about the state of our lives on the way to the airport, and I don’t join them.**  
**Instead, I’m grinning at phone over a photo Angelina sent me this morning of a cactus, like some kind of love-struck idiot.**  
**“You cool there, Daniel?” Jack squints at me.**  
**“Yup, everything’s great,” I ignore the real question under his inquiry; he’s not asking about me in this moment, but if there’s anything else I’d like to share, to which the answer is firmly, no.**  
**“This van smells like feet, there’s no cellphone service, and it’s almost three in the morning,” Zach sounds disgusted.**  
**“I’m not allowed to be happy, then? When did good moods become a crime?” I raise a brow.**  
**“You’re a monster,” He shakes his head, “Or touched in the head.”**  
**“Leave him alone,” Jonah tosses an arm around Zach’s shoulders.**  
**Zach whines, “But I’m bored.”**  
**Jonah looks, fleetingly, like he’s about to roll his eyes, but when Zach’s this tired, it would only egg him on. It only takes Jonah a second to come up with a different distraction, “So. What’s your innocuous life curse?”**  
**“Okay, Elijah,” Jack cracks immediately.**  
**That is definitely an Eli question. She’s always coming out of left field with random hypotheticals, and Jonah indulges her. It’s a pretty good diversion, really.**  
**“So?” Jonah asks again.**  
**“Ah,” Zach looses some of his swagger, “What’s innocuous mean?”**  
**He hates admitting when he’s wrong, or lost, or doesn’t have the answer, so when he actually does, we try not to go too hard on him.**  
**“It’s like harmless, or inoffensive,” I answer, “An innocuous life curse would be something that’s annoying to you, but not going to kill you.”**  
**Jonah nods, “Mine’s broken eggs. No matter what I do, when I buy eggs, they're smashed before I take them out of the car. I even put them in a separate bag last time, and still, half of them were cracked when I got home, because a melon rolled onto it.”**  
**“That has to drive Eli crazy,” Corbyn cackles, “I can’t put on a fitted sheet. It’s always the wrong direction. Christina’s got all these tricks, and none of them work. It’s, like, I’m damned to forever have to have the bed twice.”**  
**“What about you, bro?” Zach leans over his chair to look at me.**  
**“The Zac Brown Band,” I shutter.**  
**“What, why?” Jack is clearly confused.**  
**“I blame Tyler, because I’ve never liked them, but they follow me everywhere. I can’t turn on the radio, listen to a new playlist, or shuffle my own music without them showing up.”**  
**Zach laughs, “That’s awesome.”**  
**“I’m sure you’d find it hilarious if your music was constantly inundated by Brittney Spears,” I shake my head.**  
**“Excuse you,” Jack protests, “Brittney Spears is a legend.”**  
**“Alright, Mr. Spears,” Corbyn jokes, “What’s your life curse?”**  
**“No skateboarding signs,” He doesn’t even have to think about it, “I never catch a break, the park closest to Brooke’s place is covered in them, Los Angeles is, like, a giant park I can’t ride in, and it’s, like, someone always decides to park the tour bus in the least friendly neighborhood. I don’t know why I bother even packing a board anymore.”**  
**“Because you ignore everything that tells you not to do something and are hellbent on getting a record as a delinquent with a skateboard?” Corbyn points out.**  
**“Yeah, that,” Jack grins, “Also, none of you ever pay me back when I order pizza.”**  
**“That’s not a life curse, Bro,” Zach teases, “That’s just a fault of your non-assertive personality,” and Jack shoves him.**  
**Jonah tries to rein them in, “Did you think of one, Z?”**  
**“The escalators at the Grove. They’re never not broken, so I’m stuck riding that squeaky nightmare elevator every single time we go shopping,” Zach sulks. He hates elevators.**  
**“Brooke still thinks it’s cute you’re scared of them,” Jack ruffles his hair.**  
**“Not anymore,” Zach starts to protest, but then preens, “But, of course, Brooke thinks I’m cute, because I am.”**  
**“Like a tiny awkward fluffy duckling,” Jack agrees.**

 **We fall into smaller conversations then, Corbyn picking up a phone call and Zach and Jonah discussing their duck problem with Eli’s pool. Namely, that a small flock of them have decided to take up residence there, rendering the pool useless. I’m almost positive Zach suggests buying swans, but it’s not my yard, so I’m staying out of it.**  
**“Hey, bro?” Jack’s studying me.**  
**“Yes, Jack?”**  
**“It’s good, whatever’s making you happy,” He decides.**  
**I think for a second about telling him, but Corbyn has supersonic hearing, the rest of the guys are inches away, and I’m not sure how much I, or Angelina, want all of them to know, not right now.**  
**“Thanks, man. I appreciate that,” I offer him my hand, he completes our childish-super-secret band handshake, and that’s that.**

**The band spilts up after we land in California, our flight arriving so early we avoid getting stuck in the paparazzi. Corbyn and Jack hang around the airport waiting for their girlfriends’ flight to come in from New York, while Jonah and Zach slink off to Eli’s place, presumably to sleep for the next three days, or at least the next twenty-four hours.**  
**Radio plays and interviews are important, but nothing in the industry is more tedious and tiring. After thirteen straight days of it, we’re worn out.**  
**I purchase a bouquet of sunflowers on my way to catch a cab, and thank Jonah’s foresight to force us to take an earlier flight home.**

 **I have a key to Angelina’s place. I've had it since she made me carry an armchair up two flights of stairs the day she moved in, then pressed a key into my palm telling me, ‘Don’t lose that. We only have one spare.’**  
**I don’t have to use it today though, because when I knock softly on her door at six, she actually answers, “Hey Daniel.”**  
**I love the way she says my name, “Hi, Angel.”**  
**She pulls me inside, wraps her arms around me, and I try not to trip over her doormat.**  
**I lean back, just enough to get my hand on her face, tilting her head up to kiss her.**  
**“Wait,” She jerks back, and I remember she doesn’t live alone.**  
**I blink, “Amiera’s here?”**  
**“No, but,” She looks away from me, “Let’s go for a walk.”**  
**The sun has hardly risen, and that sentence sends my pulse racing in a bad way.**  
**“Sure,” I aim for collected, and miss by a mile.**  
**Angelina nods, still not looking at me, but shoves her feet in the sneakers sitting by her yoga mat, and I realize she’s wearing workout clothes, instead of pajamas. She could have answered the door in a spacesuit, and I wouldn’t have noticed. I set her flowers on her table and follow her out the door.**

 **“Here’s the thing,” Angelina starts, meeting my eyes after leading me to her courtyard. There is water everywhere from the rain last night, and a fountain bubbling somewhere behind us, creating enough humidity to make her hair curlier than usual. I want to tangle my hands in it.**  
**She sighs,“At first, this, this thing between us, it didn’t feel like a thing?” She says it like a question, “It didn’t feel like a decision, and I told myself it was a one off, we wouldn’t do it again, and we would go back to normal. Except, we kept doing it, and it started to feel like something we did decide to do, even if we kept it private, even if we didn’t talk about it.”**  
**“I don’t understand,” I confess, “We did talk about it, two weeks ago?”**  
**“We talked about not seeing other people,” She confirms I’m not going crazy, “And that’s fine. But, Danny, you told your sister this was nothing. And,” She bites at her thumbnail, the way she used to during tests she was afraid of in middle school, “And, if that’s true for you, that’s fine. If it’s true for you, if this is nothing, it’s okay, but I need to stop doing it, because this means something to me,” She wraps her arms around herself, “You’ve meant everything to me longer than you’ve been anything to anybody else.”**  
**Her eyes are all fire and spirit, and I’m so gone for her.**  
**“I want this to be real. I want us to be real, and I want to talk about it. I want to tell Anna, and Amiera, and your band, and Thom, and,”**  
**“You’re rambling,” I cut her off, incapable of stopping my smile, “Do I get to talk now?”**  
**I think she’d be blushing, if she could, and she nods.**  
**“Angelina, all I want in the world is to drive around with you.”**  
**She opens her mouth.**  
**“Still my turn,” I place a finger against her lips, “The only thing I want is to ride shotgun next to you wherever you’re going for the rest of our lives. You have the worst sense of direction and the best taste in music, and I only ever kept this quiet because I thought you wanted me to,” I breathe out, “No one’s luckier than me, Angel. That I have the right to kiss you whenever I want, you, the strongest, wittiest, prettiest, most adventurist person I know? I’ve never wanted to hide that. I’m way too proud of you.”**  
**She bites her lip.**  
**I look up to the sky, exasperated at how ridiculous we are, “I love you.”**  
**“Love you too,” Angelina responds on reflex, and it sounds a little wet.**  
**“No,” I meet her eyes again, “Not, ‘love you’. I love you,” I stress the word we’re always careful never to say. ‘Love you’ is friendly enough, ‘I love you’, is as Jonah would say, a whole new ballgame.**  
**“Oh.” There are actual tears in her eyes, and she looks like she might punch me.**  
**“I’m in love with you,” I reach out to tug on one of her curls, “Always have been, always will be, if you let me.”**  
**“Me too,” She crashes into me, sending us sprawling to the ground, my body breaking her fall, the wet ground soaking the back of all my clothes.**

**It’s my favorite place I’ve ever been.**

**I’m only fifteen percent awake when I answer my phone the next morning. My head is still fuzzy when Jonah asks, “Are you on your way?” over the sound of what might be show-tunes, and what is unmistakably the sound of half the band and Eli in her kitchen.**  
**“Getting in the car now,” I lie, looking for my clothes, which I’ve been wearing since I left the airport and is obvious enough even the guys are going to notice. I push that thought away quickly. Nothing to do for it now.**  
**“Cool,” Jonah sounds distracted, “Can you bring butter?”**  
**“Yeah, what kind does Eli want?”**  
**“Hey, Gorgeous?” Jonah asks away from the receiver, but I still hear it, “Daniel wants to know which type? Unsalted, right?”**  
**“Unsalted,” Eli’s voice agrees. Her influence is entirely responsible for my knowledge that there are even different styles of butter.**  
**“You catch that?” Jonah confirms with me.**  
**“Uh-huh,” I look at Angelina. She looks so beautiful and peaceful, pretending to be asleep in her bed, but I can’t let her stay there, “Jonah? Tell Eli I’m bringing someone.”**  
**Angelina’s eyes fly open, and everything but the music ceases immediately on Jonah’s side of the line.**  
**“Ah, sure,” Jonah recovers the quickest, “The more, the merrier.” He sounds like his mother, who’s always trying to take us in and feed us any chance she gets.**  
**“Daniel’s got a girlfriend,” Zach sing-says in the background.**  
**“Tell him it better be Angi, or I’ll be pissed,” Christina’s voice rings out.**  
**“Drive safe,” Jonah cuts them off, “We’ll see you soon.”**  
**“Will do,” I answer then hang up, before someone else can comment on my private life.**  
**Angelina blinks at me, “What have you done?”**  
**“Got you an invite to the best breakfast in Beverly Hills?” I aim for reassuring, and land somewhere near terrified.**  
**She half flips over, sighs into her pillow, then turns to look at me, “Exactly how many people is this going to be?”**  
**“The guys, Eli, the girlfriend gang,” I make a face at Zach’s official branding of the girls, it’s so dumb, but catchy, “Sometimes our families, maybe Eli’s Milo and Jayden, less often her ex, Colton. It’s just us this week, though. Sundays are a standing thing if we’re in Los Angeles, we go to Eli and Jonah’s place, eat insane amounts of food and decompress some. Brooke calls it Band Fam Brunch,” I scratch at my chin, “You said you wanted us to be real. This is real, and important, to me.”**  
**“Alright,” She finally looks less like she’s about to hide under her own bed.**  
**“Alright?” I start to smile.**  
**She shakes her head, but in a fond way, “If it’s important to you, I’m always with you. How do you not know that by now?” She stands up and starts for her closet.**  
**“I do,” I do know that, and I understand how lucky that makes me, “I feel the same.”**  
**“Good,” She tosses over her shoulder, “because you’re going to take me to dinner with my parents tomorrow.”**  
**“I’m doing what now?”**

**There’s a round of female applause, and wolf-whistling from Christina, when I let myself in Eli’s front door with Angelina.**  
**“You go girl,” Brooke smirks.**  
**Even Eli joins in, “I’m happy for you.”**

**I can feel my face going hot, but Angelina straightens up, smiling back at them.**

**“I almost can’t believe you’ve never been to one of these before,” Christina looks us over from her spot, slumped in a barstool on the outside of the kitchen island.**  
**“Daniel’s been too selfish,” Corbyn quips, grinning at Angelina.**  
**“He couldn’t bare the thought that someone else might steal some of your attention, he had to have it all to himself,” Jack drawls.**  
**It’s half-true, I’ve been too busy trying to steal her time to bring her into this, and too afraid of what they could read on my face to try.**  
**She steadily ignores the guys, looking to Eli, “Can I help?”**  
**“With the dishes!” Brooke calls from the sofa.**  
**“Eli trusts nobody in the kitchen,” I explain, tucking my hand in Angelina’s back pocket, setting the Whole Foods bag down on the counter.**  
**She gives me a look, after glancing at Jonah leaning up against the counter beside her.**  
**Christina tilts her head at them, “Jonah breaks all the rules.”**  
**Eli crinkles her nose, but doesn't protest.**  
**Jonah just laughs.**  
**“Have you seen the new hoop, Brooke?” Jonah moves towards the backdoor.**  
**Brooke’s up and moving that direction in an instant, “No, but Jack says it’s dunk-able.”**  
**“Installing it required purchasing power-tools. It better be more secure,” Eli muses.**  
**Brooke mimes dribbling, “Only one way to find out.”**  
**“I call Brooke,” Zach calls loudly, scampering up from the dining table.**  
**“Christina?” Corbyn pleads.**  
**She frowns a little, “These are new nails.”**  
**“Come on,” Corbyn pulls her off her seat, “You can be on Brooke’s team too.”**  
**I walk Angelina towards the backyard, Jack filing out in front of us. I can’t resist, “I cannot tell you how much it pleases me that your girlfriend is better at this than you are.”**  
**Jack flips me off, “Thanks, Daniel. Always good to have a reminder how much better she could do.”**  
**“Too bad I love you,” Brooke laughs, kissing him once, then bouncing away.**  
**Jack smiles with all his teeth.**  
**“Oh, the sun,” Christina tips her face fully towards the sky, stretching her arms out and spinning in a circle, “How I’ve missed you.”**  
**“We’re in California, and it’s almost May,” Corbyn tells her.**  
**“But still so shitty in New York,” Christina tosses back.**  
**“I feel like we haven’t seen the sun in months,” Brooke sighs, but groans when Christina whips her shirt off, leaving her wearing only a sports bra. It’s probably weird how often I’ve seen Corbyn’s girlfriend shirtless, but she likes to think all of California is a beach, and Jonah’s girlfriend regularly walks around in a leotard, so maybe we’re altogether too comfortable.**  
**Brooke pouts, “Not everyone is a toothpick, Chrissy, come on.”**  
**“But you’re so beautiful,” Christina reaches for the hem of Brooke’s hoodie.**  
**“And you’re going to be redder than a lobster if you stay out here for longer than ten minutes,” Brooke insists.**  
**Christina shrugs, “Are you playing Angi? Shirts or skins?”**  
**“She’s playing,” I state the obvious before it hits me, that wouldn’t be obvious to them. It’s another thing I’ve robbed them of, not just her attention, but knowing her. In keeping Angelina on the periphery, orbiting but never quite landing with this group, these people, my friends turned family, they haven’t had the chance to learn her the way I had for everyone else.The whole band knows why Eli will never pick up a ball for a contact sport, too skittish about getting hurt and losing her ability to dance, the same way we know someone always has to drag Christina into playing, even when she plays defense with an almost scary single-minded-determination that will knock even Corbyn down, and how it’s safe to bet Jack’s Ivy League math-nerd girlfriend will destroy us all with basketball and a shy smile on her face.**  
**I know Angelina would never sit out of a game, because she’s the only person I’ve ever met that doesn’t honestly mind doing things she’s bad at, she just loves to play, but none of them know that.**  
**In keeping everything separate, in making the mistake I did thinking this had to be private, I made her a secret; and that feels kind of terrible.**

 **“Skins,” Angelina answers, almost apologetic to Brooke, and takes off her sweater revealing some kind of bikini top. She’s way too hot. I swear it gets ten degrees warmer when she brushes up against me on her way to Christina’s side.**  
**Zach wolf-whistles, removing his shirt, because he’s Zach, and Jonah ignores him, jumping up to hang off the hoop attached to their garage, testing it’s strength. Brooke dribbles the ball twice before passing to Christina, and we’re off.**  
**Angelina purposefully guards me, smirking because she knows she’s a distraction, of which Brooke takes full advantage, and despite Jack talking enough smack to deserve being tripped, I can’t be anything other than ecstatic.**  
**I should be annoyed, at how easily Angelina shows me up, how effortlessly she pushes all my buttons, but I’m not.**

**I’m just so grateful we’re here now.**

 

 

 


	10. Home

Angelina.  
I’m just so grateful we’re here now.

I think it, but I don’t say it, when Christina starts in on our mutual inability to recognize what was, with the benefit of hindsight, right in front of us.

“I just don’t understand how it took you guys so long,” Christina shakes her head, “You know everything about each other, how on earth did you not recognize what was going on? It was too obvious.”  
“We don’t know everything about each other,” Daniel tries to reason.  
“Oh, really?” Corbyn perks up, “What’s her favorite flower?”  
“Sunflowers,” Daniel answers effortlessly.  
I have to smile. The bouquet he brought me yesterday, which I failed to notice until after I’d dragged him into the quad, spilled my guts, and jumped him, is currently sitting on my nightstand, “Okay, but he picked that.”  
“How did he pick your favorite flower?” Brooke asks, stealing hash-browns off Jack’s plate.

It had been chaos when Eli whistled us back inside after breakfast was ready. A stampede might be the accurate word for the way everyone charged inside. Daniel was right though, she is an excellent cook. What looked like enough food to feed an army has rapidly disappeared, but I managed to nick an entire plate of seconds out from under Daniel.

“In High School,” I glance at Daniel to see if he remembers this story, he doesn’t seem to but he smiles at me anyway, “Someone asked me what my favorite flower was. I didn’t have one, but before I could answer, Daniel told them sunflowers. He said it totally certain he’d gotten it right, no doubt at all, and so now they’re my favorite.”  
“That’s, like, sickeningly cute,” Jack sticks out his tongue.  
“This explains so much,” Zach puts his elbows up on the table to examine me better, “I thought he bought those for his mom.”  
“No,” I laugh, “I think Mrs. Seavey would prefer chocolate.”  
“Always,” Daniel confirms, “I didn’t know, the sunflower thing. You could have told me,” He thumbs at his chin.  
“It’s been the truth since you said it,” I shrug, “Why would I correct you when you weren’t wrong?”  
He grins, “You picked my favorite cereal.”  
Now I’m confused, “Lucky Charms?”  
Daniel nods, “Do you remember the first time you went grocery shopping alone?”  
“You fell asleep on my floor, after spending all day assembling Ikea furniture for me, and I didn’t want to wake you. I forgot I don’t cook until after I got a cart,” I smile.  
“You came home with orange juice, bananas, and Lucky Charms. We ate dry cereal out of the box sitting on the floor for dinner, because I hadn’t finished building the dining room chairs yet, and you couldn’t find the crate full of silverware.”  
“You liked them before that,” I’d watched him pick them before.  
“I did,” He agrees, “But they weren’t my favorite until you bought them for me.”  
“And, that’s all the adorable I can take,” Zach decides, then addresses Jonah, “So, have you thought about the swans?”  
Jonah palms his forehead, “We’re not getting a swan.”  
“I’m not suggesting you do,” Zach makes finger guns at Jonah, “I said we need a pair of swans, you know, two.”  
“Zachary Dean,” Eli gives him a look, “You can put the terrible emoji rafts in the pool if you will, please, stop asking for swans.” She says swans like I would say ‘tarantulas’.  
“Awesome,” Zach smirks.  
Jonah groans, “How do you always get what you want?” It’s too fond to be a real critique. Zach’s the baby of the group, they’d let him get away with murder.  
“I’m good at the long-scheme,” Zach boasts.  
“That’s not a word, you're looking for longterm, or scheming,” Brooke teases, “and it’s one-hundred-percent the cheeks.”  
“Definitely,” Jack pokes at them, “Why do you want swans anyway? If you want a pet, get a puppy.”  
“We’re not getting a dog,” Eli and Jonah say together with the tone of two people who’ve said that sentence frequently.  
“But, puppy breath!” Christina argues, and Eli glares at her without meaning it. I think this is what brunch here must always be like, with these people who know and love each other too well, nothing is gets by them but they’re all bark and no bite.  
Daniel laughs next to me, his knee knocking into mine, and I think I'd choose to be here over anywhere else.

 

It’s dark when Zach disappears to the back rooms of Eli’s house. We’ve been here all day, lounging on her massive leather sofas, feeling thanksgiving-dinner-full, and laughing so much it hurts.  
Zach reappears with a guitar in each hand, passing one off to Daniel then collapsing beside Eli on the floor cradling the other.  
She plucks it off him, dimpling, “Whose turn is it?”  
“For what?” I whisper to Daniel.  
His fingers fly over the strings, tuning the instrument, which he could do in his sleep, but he doesn’t answer me.  
Corbyn calls out, “Jack’s,” from his seat between Christina and Jonah on the other couch.  
Jack leans back a fraction, careful not to disrupt Brooke, who’s been sketching on his vans for the last hour, “Bae?”  
Brooke looks up, “You could call me, literally, like, anything else, Jackass.” She says 'jackass' like 'honey' and blushes straight to her bangs. Their exchange makes Christina burst into giggles.  
Jack wiggles his eyebrows, “Well, what’s it going to be?”  
“The Morissette one I like,” She ducks her head back to her work, “Please.”  
Jack smiles at the back of her head, clearly amused.  
Eli picks a rhythm on her guitar, Daniel joining in seamlessly, and Jack belts out ‘Hand In My Pocket’ like he wrote it.  
Daniel changes the melody when Jack’s finished, Eli following his lead.  
He looks at me shyly from the corner of his eye, then starts singing,  
“If you want to meet me come on down, if you want to see me on the town, I will bring the some of my mistakes, and you will bring a smile right to my face. How am I going to find you in the crowd? You’re gonna wear an outfit that's so damn loud, you could put the peacocks all to shame. I’ll try to find a shirt that's got no stains. You go window shopping down the lane. Me, I'm always singing in the rain, someone threw a kiss off the balcony, someone else is bended on one knee. Why don't we go drink up all these lights? There's no place that I'd rather be tonight, there’s an angel appearing in a small cafe. You make me feel like I might float away…”  
Jonah takes Eli’s guitar, but I hardly notice because I’m stuck in the spell of Daniel singing. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve heard him, it feels like the first time, like he’s stealing my heart out of my chest, or giving me a perfect gift. In moments like this, I wonder how he could have ever thought he would do anything else. It doesn’t matter if he’s playing for fifteen thousand people, or five, he’s the best.   
“How many songs with Angel in them do you know?” I lay my head down on his shoulder.  
“All of them,” Zach smirks, “Plus the one he wrote, that we keep trying to put on the new album.”  
“Too obvious,” Christina sighs, and Corbyn kicks her foot.  
“That’s why you’ve been hiding it,” I mutter against Daniel. It's been a year since he's played me new music.   
“Not hiding, just,” He kisses my forehead, laying his guitar down, “Insuring plausible deniability.”  
“I really love you,” I smile to myself.  
Jonah plucks a rhythm the band would never play, but is somehow familiar to me. His playing it still doesn’t make much sense, until Eli starts singing,  
“Well, I stumbled in the darkness, lost and alone.  
‘though I said I’d go before us, and show the way back home.”  
Zach gets up and extends a hand to her. She takes it, letting him sweep her up into a waltz.  
“Is there light up ahead? I can’t hold on very long.  
Forgive me pretty baby, but I always take the long way home,” Her voice is insanely sweet.  
Daniel stands at the next verse, “Angel?”  
I shake my head no, I don’t want to dance next to his choreographer, thank you, but somehow, that’s exactly where we end up.  
Corbyn pulls Christina out into the floor too, and despite Brooke’s resistance, Jack forces her up too.  
Eli sings the whole song, spinning around with Zach, and looking at Jonah.  
By the last verse, Daniel’s singing softly in my ear, changing the lyrics,  
“Though I love you, baby, more than the whole wide world.  
You’re my woman. You know you are my pearl,” He spins me out, then tugs me back into his arms, crooning softly, “Come with me, together, we can take the long way home.”

 

 

There’s not a moment for Daniel and I.  
There never was. We have no beginning, no way to pinpoint when everything changed, no fumbling come-on, no sweetly awkward first kiss, no lightening bolt shooting sparks to our relationship. Neither of us remember the start of our friendship, and we won’t ever actually agree on what our anniversary is, but whatever we’re lacking from missing the moment, doesn’t bother me anymore.

We never shared a moment, and we probably never will, because we share something far greater than that.

We get to share a _life_.

**Author's Note:**

> For S.  
> Pretty certain no one has a smarter little sister than I do, and absolutely positive there isn't a cooler person.  
>  
> 
> And for N.  
> Because all of my love stories are always a little bit of you. 
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you so much for making it here. Kudos and comments are always so appreciated.


End file.
